


Wicked Game

by Abi_Faye



Series: Enlightenment Novellas [2]
Category: The Chronicles
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 19:39:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 82,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abi_Faye/pseuds/Abi_Faye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(turn it to a ballroom blitz baby, for i do so hate to sleep alone. //</p><p> The Brackners: Harper, Lyndsi, Max, Zoe, Al, Laura, Bianca, Cade.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. El Tercer Hermano

"Ay ay, vamanos, vamanos!--"

Ric was cut off the mocking by a whack to the back of his head, only making Graciela Brackner giggle as he apologized to Ma. This is how you greet your mother after four months?, Graciela mouths what their mother was saying but hey, she did so..okay semi-nicely! (And Ma didn't see). Ric was affronted; he was just trying to get them out the door, of course, and now making amends kissing Ma's cheeks twice each. Graciela smiles. Alcott would have made fun, but she saw no reason to fill her cousin's absence. He'd be with them soon enough.

They did need to go though, just could do without the reminder! As if there was a person there who wasn't talking at a hundred miles an hour, rapid, passionate. The moment Max had rang they'd sparked a frenzy (to be sure, their family was live-kindling). And yet, nunca es tarde cuando la dicha es buena, si, si? It's never too late for joy, the words had never meant more no matter how often Ma quoted them.

"Si, y mucho gusto," Ric grins back at his sister, helping Rosa get her sweater through the other arm, "And it's not too early either, at, one in the morning "

"Ric!" Alisa groans behind them, holding up her book and telling him in Spanish she'd asked him not to turn the pages down. Graciela just ignores him, smoothing down her own jacket nervously thinking, they'll get there, a fin de cuentas. Or morning. (Whatever, Ric.)

Ma herself had only one hoop earring in, the opposite heel on, and evidently was trying to get the heel in her ear and earring through her toe - or something but Ric didn't get to ask further before the stiletto was aimed at him - which he caught, allowing Ma to slip her earring in, shoe on, and slip out the door.

How had she ended up the last one out again? Graciela groans under her breath, knowing she was going to hear about that in the car. They had jumped in, Papa first through the Floo network to Tia Bianca's - but only her brother was there to greet them. He looked immaculate, of course. (Actually, Ric was furious about that, something Ma had picked up on - at least judging by her admonishing him with the phrase "a tumba abierta." Yeah, Alcott got to have all the fun, Graciela mutters under her breath exposing himself as a werewolf, going to a burning church and evidently

Well, actually, Max hadn't said what it was they were doing piling into the car and taking off at one-thirty am again, now in a different country. But Alcott texted Ric. They'd already been hearing for a good half hour how much you were not supposed to deliver news like 'my father's alive after nine and a half years presumed otherwise' via text message.

(Their mother could hardly work her phone anyway).

Graciela closed the door behind her maybe five seconds before Dad had sped off and yet for all the hastle, there was nothing but a huge grin on her face. She straightens her skirt again, waiting for the admonishment for being last out (as if she hadn't been the first ready - apart from Dad), waiting for the question if she'd remembered to lock up, blow her candles out. Huh.

Dad was strangely silent.

Ma had a look of adoration and concern on when she turned to their father in the car, her hand going to his knee, but all she got for the simple 'Are you excited?' question was a sudden, small smile and for once she seemed to let that suffice. Graciela and Ric exchanged awed looks. Alisa was trying to read by the lights they zoomed by and had her book held up against the window, balanced precariously. Rosa was asleep again on Ric's shoulder.

"I'm excited." Ric offered Ma after a few minutes of making sure Rosa's curl wasn't going to fall in her mouth. Ma looked back and after a smile - asked him about school, which caused dual groans from Alisa and Ric, prompting a conversation that somehow had something to do with a giant squid on campus.

Dad just kept driving. Graciela was pretty damn certain they'd more than doubled the legal limit now but no one said anything about it. It was like the countryside knew where they were going. She fingers her necklace, clearing her throat.

The manor was bigger than Graciela remembers when they pull in, all the lights were on, flowers buzzing as they were remotely sprayed with something and lit by floating lamps. Grey rocks crunch beneath her feet. Rosa was yawning against her brother's side until Ric decided to just pick their little sister up. Alisa tucked her book neatly back into her purse, took Ma's hand before marching proudly beside her. They all pretend she didn't yawn. After a brief glance around the car the beeped it was locked behind them, Graciela stalled, realizing Dad had too.

"Papa?" She asked, closest to him and uncertain. The usual jovial grin looks suddenly out of place as it appears with eyes wider than she thinks she'd ever seen them. He looks...distant, maybe even a little afraid, which makes Graciela feel better. She was glad not to be the only one. Ric was as cool as a cucumber. What must Dad be thinking now? When he was looking around the home he'd grown up in, and hadn't visited besides once or twice at Christmas in almost a decade? She knew why he'd never wanted to come before, but if his brother really was alive...  
(Of course he would be, Alcott wouldn't have lied about that).

"Yeah," he said, suddenly sounding very British to her (Abuela must be inside then), but she sighs in relief. Sandor Brackner shook his head, extending his arm - which Graciela took as an invitation to hug him, squishing herself against his side until he kissed the top of her head.  
"Just preparing myself," Sandor offers as they walk after the rest of the family brood with a small grin back on his face, "Been a little while since both my older brothers could go after me at the same time."

Graciela chuckles into his side, toying with her zipper as they entered the manor. A tired-looking (but bright-smiling) butler took her jacket anyway, leaving her nothing but Dad's hand to hold on to. It was sweating.

"I'm sure they'll go easy," she offers, but Dad shakes his head again. The chuckle in his throat indignant, he rubs across his cheeks as they follow the way Jimmy pointed.

"I hope not," is what he says, and Graciela thinks she's going to cry before they even get there.


	2. Es Un Milagro

Elena had been talking to herself in Spanish the whole time, and after 45 years of marriage, Benjamin still couldn't make heads or tails out of it. He only hurried her up as much as he could, telling her time and time again that absolutely no one cared how she looked. To that she only responded that _she_ cares how she looked, and would hear nothing about it.  
  
They apparated instead of taking the Floo, because Elena couldn't bear the soot on her, and because they were Brackners, they got right past the wards and landed immediately on the doorstep. Elena surprised Benjamin by not even bothering to wait for Jimmy to open the door, though he was already there. Elena was so focused, so on point, that she didn't even leave her coat with the butler, so Benjamin followed immediately after her.  
  
Benjamin had pinched himself several times already to ensure he was really awake. How many dreams had he already had of their eldest son returning to them? How many mornings had he woken up with fading images and a heavier weight on his heart than before? He wasn't sure they could bear a disappointment so great.   
  
And yet there was a light that threatened to overshadow the sun. Benjamin Brackner was not a man of words, definitely not poetic ones, so even that small sentence should be considered proof enough of the miracles that were happening this day. The owl with the news had been sent by Lyndsea herself, this could not be some sick joke, it couldn't be.  
  
Later he would have to thank his daughter for the warning, because otherwise he might have died of shock. Elena almost did.  
  
As they walked into the family room and saw Harper sitting with Lyndsi, Alcott, and Max, all breath left his body, and apparently traveled to Elena's as she started letting them go in half-sobs. A hand covered in faint wrinkles, his wife aged really well, flew to her lips as she stared, her eyes shining with tears.  
  
Harper stood, a smile on his face as he began to take a few steps forward. Benjamin's throat went unbelievably dry as he opened and closed his mouth as if he were some sort of fucking guppy, unable to catch his breathe. He was there, he was really there. Older, with thinner hair than he ever had, more grey than the jet black of his family. He was pale, so pale, and while he'd always been the thinnest of the boys he had never been this gangly. But noticing all of that took less than a second, and then it ceased to matter, because their son was here.  
  
Elena tried to take a step forward, but her knees shook too much and she lost her balance. Benjamin was quick to catch her, but even then he wasn't quick enough to beat Alcott who was at her side in an instant, steadying her as Harper fast-walked over to them as well.  
  
"Ma-" he only began before Elena let herself fall into her son chest's, clutching at him in full-blown tears. Harper supported his mother, the both of them speaking in a rapid Spanish that Benjamin would never understand, though he did understand one phrase his wife kept repeating over and over again in the midst of everything else.  
  
 _Es un milagro. It's a miracle._  
  
Wiping his eyes quickly, he felt a laugh bubble up from inside his chest and he let it out. Harper turned once Elena found her footing again, kissing her son on both cheeks and then the forehead before repeating the process all over again. Even then she didn't move away, simply made room and with Harper's arm outstretched, Benjamin stepped forward to embrace his son for the first time in nearly a decade.  
  
"Dad," Harper spoke near his shoulder, making Benjamin squeeze him tighter, clapping his back.  
  
"Oh son, my son," he blinked quickly again before just shutting his eyes completely. "I believe it now, I believe it. You are God." Father and son laughed once, sounds filled with the emotion that was covering their throat, at an old joke that neither thought they'd share together again. Benjamin was only glad that he and Elena have lasted as long as this so they could see their son return. Benjamin's heart could fail tomorrow, and he would die a happy man.  
  
"Harper, mi hijo, mi niño hermoso, que alegría, que jubilación, mi amor!" Elena sobbed again as she held him around his waist, mimicking what Harper used to do when he was five years old and brought an especially dangerous animal home with him and begged her to keep it.  
  
"Thank you, God," Elena murmured, finally returning back to English.  
  
"You don't have to call me that, mami," Harper replied, earning another laugh from Benjamin and then a wide beam from Elena that Benjamin could tell came from nostalgia than actual amusement. Elena whacked the head of every one of her boys for comments like those that annoyed her, but she loved every second of it.   
  
"I, however, am perfectly fine going by Jesus--" Alcott started to say before catching his mother's eye. By no means should that insinuate that he didn't finish the thought! But he does mouth a small 'sorry' after it, mollifying her somewhat decreasing the sentiment. With a wide grin, he steps back now that he's certain his abuela isn't about to collapse.

"Pah! Our lord and savior, everyone!" Benjamin proclaimed after a snort, shaking his head after sharing another brief laugh with his eldest son, and found him swallowing the overabundance of saliva that was collecting in his throat. He still couldn't find a way to properly process all that was happening, so he took it with a smirk, as was expected.  
  
He and Elena managed to finally move from their son, though God knew it took some amazing display of will to do so, finally noticing Lyndsea's parents. Benjamin waved, a proud grin on his face as Elena quickly moved to (well first, ensure she still looked spectacular) greet them both quickly.

(Though he still helps - by which he means, he hovers, until she and Gramps have moved to sit).  
  
It was strange to see the family amassed with neither aunt (Bianca and Selene were evidently both still working - and screw it, Zoe counts as his aunt, and she was busy too) -- but the rest were there. His grandmother - Lyndsea's mother, that was - had already greeted his father, and now had a chardonnay in one hand as she watched the scene, glass-eyed, granddad on the other side with his pipe. It wasn't lit. It never was. Mario just liked to look distinguished.   
  
The moment the rest of their Spanish family arrived however, Donna moved, waving to the seven year old Rosa in Ric's arms and gesturing that there was plenty of room for the little girl to curl up with them. She brightened seeing it, which helpfully (in Alcott's eyes) drew attention away from the fact she'd been wide-eyed seeing the scars on Dad.  
  
They just make him look distinguished, Alcott thinks inconsequentially.  
  
"There's a sight for sore eyes," his mother was murmuring to Gramps as Sandor approached his two elder brothers. She has tears on her cheeks again. Good, Alcott thinks, wiping away at his own eye. Quickly! He couldn't stop beaming.   
  
Even his wounds were pretty non-existant now, except the silver burns. For once, Alcott couldn't blame his wolf-iness for his stamina. It was simply Dad. His father was reunited with his mother; Eliza (Eliza!) was home with both of her parents; Hols had sent him a text (about goddamn time) she was at Hogwarts safe. And now his family, reunited, and healed.The first thing Dad did when they arrived was rebandage his mother's arm; she had sweaters over it now. Uncle Max had pushed him off after a blood replenishment potion, insisting they had better things to look at.  
  
And God, did they.   
  
"Siempre." Sandor said, spinning to Lyndsea - or at least, he started to. His eyes never actually left Dad. Alcott can relate.   
  
Lyndsea chuckles, just pointing out, "I meant - the three hermanos. Sore eyes."

By that time, Sandor and Rosalia have arrived with their children. Harper had been told about them already, first by Eliza and then as Lyndsi and Alcott tried to fill him in quickly, but seeing them arrive like an army only made Harper brighten (even as he fought off a sudden clench around his heart).  
  
"It sure is," Benjamin agreed with Lyndsi, putting an arm around her and squeezing her tight. For the first time in nearly a decade, the sun was shining in Brackner manor. (He really hoped this poetic shit was only temporary, otherwise Elena was going to start demanding sonnets again.) Benjamin had almost forgotten how resplendent Lyndsi really was.

Lyndsea was vibrant now, her gold hair in a pile on her head, fleece over bandages, clean of make-up and somehow at least ten years off her face. As her father in law hugged her, she found herself squeezing back for all it was worth. How was it she was standing there looking at her husband, reuniting with both brothers and nieces, nephew, cousins and in-laws? There were stars in her eyes, only brightening when Harper laughed. God, how she missed that laugh!

Sandor shrugs a shoulder with good-natured teasing, "Oh I see, I see, right, sure - come here." The last was to Harper, and served his brother for about two moments warning notice. Then he's pulled him into an embrace, gestured to Max with an impish grin and in seconds they've created a Harper sandwich.

"Same old Sandor, always fishing for a compliment," he teased before his baby brother pulled him into a hug. Harper clapped his back, squeezing his eyes tight for a moment as they hugged and then all of a sudden he was cut from air as Max entered the fray. With the breath he still had in his lungs, he laughed and shook his head, squeezing both of them; his little brothers, none of them little anymore.  
  
Pulling back, Harper nodded, eager to meet and re-meet his nieces and nephew.  
  
Patting his brother's upper back, he said, "Ah-hold on, I do believe introductions are in order..." And he spun, fooling no one into thinking he wasn't wiping a tear or two away. Pointing, he said proudly, "That's Ric-"  
  
"I'm as tall as Dad is," Ric said, prompting a 'shhhh' from the girl in his arms. Graciela sighed.

"The first one way too pretty to be mine is -" Sandor pauses, then leans over, kisses his wife's cheek adding, "-well you remember Rosalia-"  
  
"Nice save, Papa," Ric teased easily.

"What, _only_ four?" Harper asked jokingly, his smile widening.

"Hey, not for lack of trying." Sandor answered, chuckling under his breath before promptly finding himself wrapped up explaining himself to his wife for a few minutes. This was common. Harper leans to kiss Rosalia's cheek first and foremost, giving her a hug as well. _Bella como siempre_ , Harper spoke with a smile and turned for the introductions.  
  
"Then Graciela," she blushes impressively on cue, toying with her necklace and saying a sheepish, small, 'hi'. Then, "We missed you, Tio Harper."  
  
Graciela was smiling, wide.  
  
"Alisa..." Sandor continued before he choked up. She bounds right by her father to hug Harper first, with the look of one overcoming awe and fear. 

"You guys are so big!" Ric, Enrique, and Graciela were only toddlers the last time Harper had seen them and he hadn't been receiving pictures of them to have an idea of what they would look like now. They were all beautiful children, really. He smiled, about to move forward when all of a sudden the freshly introduced Alisa ran forward to hug him. Harper grinned, hugging back. "And you were only a big belly the last time I saw you," he chuckled and then looked up at Rosalia, altering, "normal-sized belly, I mean."  
  
It was clear he was out of practice.

Sandor paused, clearly realizing he has no idea if his eldest brother even knows Rosalia had been pregnant with Rosa and here she was seven years old. But she took care of things adding, in a tired quiet voice, thickly accented in the exhaustion, "I can do it, Dad. Soy Rosa. Ricccc-I want to say hi!"   
  
"Whoops, sorry Ros--" Enrique brought his sister closer, at least until she promptly leaned across thin air, wrapped her arms around Harper's neck and kisses his cheek. Loudly.  
  
"Buenas noches." She says tiredly, but blinks wide-eyed now that she's closer and asks in a quiet hush, "...why do you have red lines on you?"  
  
Looking up again, he looked on amused as the youngest of Sandor's daughters declared she was going to introduce herself and ordered her brother to bring her closer. It was really astounding how comfortable these girls were with a seemingly   total stranger, and if he were Sandor he'd be just a tad bit concerned except for the fact he really wasn't.  
  
"Hola, Rosa," he greeted with a grin as she leaned away to hug him around the neck. It wasn't a surprise that she mentioned the scars given that they were the fluffy pink hypogriff in the room that no one wanted to talk about. He smiled, somehow feeling more at ease talking about it to the youngest person here than anyone else.  
  
"Have you ever scraped or hurt your knees after falling?" He asked quietly and waited for the answering before continuing, "Well, it's a little like that. But now that I'm here, I can start to get better."  
  
Rosa nods as her uncle asks her a question, stubbornly fighting a yawn and ignoring the tiny admonishing hiss of her name from Ric. She looks with hesitation and determination at the lines, then lifts a hand floating towards them, asking in Spanish, "Kiss it?"  
  
"That's Tia Lyndsea's job," Ric couldn't help but quip instantly.   
  
"Oh- _mate_ -"  
  
Alcott laughs in agreement even as he feigned a groan; Graciela's blush turns to a smirk of appreciation. Sandor chuckled to cover the fact he started to whistle. Dammit, there were more tears in his eyes - but he still spared a sideways glance to Max, who was now picking the eleven year old Alisa up and spinning her around the room.

Harper chuckled at Rosa's quick suggestion, trying to ignore the fact he knew his cheeks were tinting the slightest shade of pink as he began to feel uncomfortable. It pained him more than he could admit that it would be true, being uncomfortable around his own family, but he was. As soon as the rush of seeing everyone for the first time in so long started to fade, Harper began to be struck with the apprehension of how to keep conversation going. What if things were too different now, what if they had nothing to talk about?

Max goes to settle her with Lyndsea's parents, and Sandor goes to kiss his mother in greeting too.  He could already tell that as much as he wanted to spend the night having a drink and catching up with his brother, it was going to have to wait until morning. His daughters were about to fall asleep - and more importantly, he thought Harper might be...easily overwhelmed.  
  
See, Bianca. I  _do_ listen to you.   
  
Harper settled for breathing out again, and back in, repeating it.  Harper was happy, overjoyed, at seeing his family all together again. They had all come running to see him and sure, he knew that for some of them (if not most of them) the sight was going to be a little difficult to adjust to, but they were all sincerely happy. His father clapped Max and Sandor on the shoulder as they moved past him, and his mother was telling Sandor (for what seemed to be the 1000th time if his face was any indication), that traveling in that grotesque hunk of metal was so wasteful and time-consuming, not to mention dangerous 'look at what's happened to dear Zoe, por Dios' and she continued.  
  
The Brackners were proving to be the same rambunctious, and tight-knit family it had been when he left, all Harper was desperate to do is prove that he still fit here; that he was still a part of the puzzle.

Far from looking upset, Rosa only beamed to think her suggestion was taken seriously, especially when Lyndsea promptly does move towards Harper. (She couldn't help it. He was like a magnet to her).   
  
"I think you're right, Rosa." She says sweetly, her hand going up to Harper's upper back as she asks, a bit teasing, "May I, luv?"

Finding his shoulders loosening as Harper realized it was Lyndsi who had approached him, he chuckled, turning to look at her again.  
  
"Of course," he replied with a smile now that he had fought the blush away on pure stubborn will alone.   
  
"I love you," Lyndsi teased, breathy in Harper's ear as her hand presses reassurance against his upper back -- and then she leans in to kiss his neck. Brief, her lips brush against the torn, angry skin with reverence before she pulls back to the only-too-predictable whoots of approval from Al and Ric.  
  



	3. World's Best Brother Mugs

It occurs to Max that it had been nine and a half years since he'd seen Lynds smile so wide--knows it's true of his own grin too and somehow only feels the guilt in his throat tighten.  
  
Max caught the glance at him from Sandor - though probably because he was looking for it. 'Does Harper know you slept with his wife?', that quick glance told his queasy stomach, making it flip over again. Talented, his gullet. It was asking questions too: _how could you betray your brother? how could he have known? what should he have done? how could you believe he was really dead, fuck his wife when he was lying in a cell?_  
  
Ma didn't know of course, and he suspects that his father was in the dark too (willfully, as Dad had always been sharper than given credit for by he or his brothers). The girls didn't - if Ric did it was from Alcott, and his nephew had greeted him as cheerful(ly teasing slash insulting) as usual, so he suspects not - but Sandor did. Rosalia did. (Like his brother kept anything from his wife). Bianca too, likely as not, between Zoe and Rosalia.  
  
But then Sandor looks away again (thank you Ma, for caring so much about that car) and he breathes a sigh of quick, understated relief, fixing the pillow Alisa used to prop her book up. Dad was talking to Mario, completely and carefully ignoring the umpeenth arguement over the car except the occasional 'yes dear' nod; Ric enlists Al's help on getting a protesting Graciela (after she too hugged Harper) to come to Hogwarts the next year -- Rosa starts enlisting Lyndsi's mom's help on something while his sister-in-law did her hair. Everyone stole glances at Harper, except for Lynds. She never really looked away. For a moment, Max looks around the room, realized how at ease everyone was despite the strange situation- and was happy. So blissfully happy.  
  
It wasn't for several minutes of easy conversation that Max seems to accept that whatever his bliss he wasn't going to be comfortable here. Especially with the unease evident in his elder and younger brother's gazes; for different reasons, he prays. He'd already packed, while Harper looked at Lyndsea's arm -- Alcott had even 'thoughtfully' put his bag near the door with Jimmy. The moment Sandor and Rosalia start making apologies, say Rosa's asleep again, and move their herd to sleep in the guests rooms(/suites, this goddamn house), Max gets up.  
  
He is not hurt by the look of relief that flits across Lyndsea's face.  
  
"Yeah, mate, and I'm going to go -- pretend I'm not checking in on Zoe," he takes his brother's hand, shakes, pulls him in for another quick hug and pats his upper back. This was his brother. Harper was honestly--here. He just hugs Lyndsea, even when he'd kissed Rosalia's and all the girls cheeks, praying the absence wouldn't be noted for the awkwardness it was.  
  
(She whispered thanks in his ear, gave him a look that plainly said she was going to tell Harper, and por Dios what was he doing praying Harper wouldn't spot the nine hundred subtleties and catalog them away in that magnificent, pain-in-the-ass brain of his?)  
  
The need to get out, to think, just increased even as he held the embrace and figured out for the foreseeable future the brother that spent almost a decade fighting to return to his family will hate him. So sue him, if Max lingered near the door. Then he winks, says he'd call in the morning, and was out.  
  
It's not long before he recognizes the street he apparated too and realizes his lie about where he was going was kind of true after all. Shaking snow off the brim of his jacket and stuffing his hands heavy down his leather-lined pockets, Max lets his feet take him where he...well, needed to be. Calls of 'button up' from the crotchety next-door lady running her 24-hour flowershop even in the snow make him smirk - begin to call back thanks when Mrs. Carey asks him wuth a hand to her heart, 'Maximillion, God, what happened?'  
  
Max didn't know where to start. So he smiles, nods back at her and shrugs it off (gritting his back teeth and rotating his shoulder more carefully).  
  
"Good news," he offers, "kind of a long story. Check the papers in the morning." The worn understanding in the woman's eyes is the kind only an older woman with weighty experience in receiving the best and worst of the world can offer. Max hopes his eyes aren't haunted that much; the crinkles belying his age are bad enough.  
  
"All right, I will." She said, clearly about to search her bins for a pre-edition. Still she finds time to jab at him with a knotted finger and smirk worthy of his family, "But wear a scarf next time!"  
  
"Happy Christmas, Mrs. Carey," he offers, and keeps walking.  
  
Oh hell. Now he was thinking it was Christmas. Max tugs on the dog tags on his neck. So, what exactly does one get a long lost brother return-ee from the dead besides knowledge that while you were fighting for your life I was screwing your wife, for the holidays? A sweater? Novelty mug? My brother was in a holding cell being tortured in the godforsaken crypts of Notre Dame and all I got was this lousy t-shirt?  
  
Actually he'd be lucky to get that from Harper.  
  
Max takes the steps up at a quick jog, knocking more snow free from his hair and shoes before he knocks. Two, hard, raps. What did he get his brother last time? A two-set of mugs, he thinks, but shit he can't remember -- World's Best Brother, right here. He knocks again, straining against his jacket, breath rising in front of him in the frozen air. Harper'd gotten him a lock for his gym locker he modified: anyone who touched it that wasn't him had their thumbprint catalogged for potential thefts, it opened with a snap of his fingers, wouldn't wear or rust, couldn't be jimmied, or burned off and cataloged his times and present weights for him, and somehow still managed to chide him for not reading enough. Max chuckles once to himself. Oh, Harper. A small smirk lifts his lips, not managing to reach his eyes.  
  
Oh, Harper.  
  
The door opens. Max didn't need to say anything - he couldn't say anything, his throat was clogged and his damned too-expressive eyes were doing the job for him anyway. Lowering his hand, he tried. Zoe ushers him in with a soft, "I know," and before the door is locked behind them - lack of fancy lock not withstanding, Max is hugging her, and holding on tight.


	4. The Little Gold Lipstick Tube That Could

The moment Sandor had left with his family to get them situated upstairs, her parents and thankfully Harper's parents as well, decided it was best they disapparate for their own homes to sleep - they (Elena took some nudging) thought it was best they let Harper have his house.

As happy as he was being surrounded by family once again, there was no denying the sense of relief as they started leaving to go back to their own homes, or upstairs to turn in. Harper never once used the words 'goodbye' as they departed, and had to insist to his mother more than once that he wasn't going anywhere. Not ever, never again.

He kissed all his nieces again before they headed upstairs, wishing them all a good night and turned back to Max before he announced his departure as well. The fact that he wasn't going upstairs only added to worries Harper had been trying to repress for hours. To check on Zoe, that was believable at least, even if she had already checked out of Mungo's and was back home. Harper tried not to read into it, but it was impossible. Nevertheless, he hugged his brother too, nodding once with a smile and watched him leave. The fact that he said he was going to call tomorrow, just call, was another detail Harper didn't miss.

Lyndsea wasn't breathing quite properly until Max left himself - she even let go of Harper while clasping her hands behind her back as they said goodbye. Alcott swore he was going to get Graciela back for something as she darts upstairs with a smirk on her face - turns around, and realizes that after the shock of the entire family, happy, reunited, it was somewhat more of a shock to be back to him and his parents.

Looking between them, he gets a bright smirk, then chuckles and claps his hands together once.

"I'm going to run and check on Eliza before going to sleep myself?" Their son says, as if it isn't a question. As if he thinks he definitely knows what his parents want to do. When Lyndsi realizes what Al thinks, she blushes, and isn't sure if it's because he's wrong considering what she has to tell Harper - or, frankly, because oh God, she wishes. Both, probably. The blush on her high English brow is rosy as if she was Aurora, the sleeping beauty, only it was Harper who was her personal dawn.

Left with only his wife and son once again, Harper chuckles as Alcott finds a reason to leave as well, nodding softly. Brackner men, going to check on their blonde women, of course. Harper smiled again to think that Eliza was back home. He knew it must have been overwhelming to return for her as well.

"Tell her we're thinking of her two," Lyndsea manages, trying to calm her racing heart and smiling soft as her son leans in to kiss her cheek too. 

"Course." Alcott said, but he was already look at his father. It had been nearly a decade, Lyndsea thinks, since Al bypassed her to smile at his Dad and -- God she missed even that.

"I'll be back early Dad," Alcott said, clearly unable to say the word 'Dad' enough and like it wasn't three am, "don't you dare start in the lab without me." 

He hugged his father tight, and didn't take his eyes off him until he had to turn to disapparate.

"Good night, son," Harper smiled after a nod and a hug, "I'll see you in the morning." That was a promise. Alcott disapparated with a pop and he was alone again with Lyndsi since their reunion in Notre Dame.

Lyndsi let's out a sudden sigh of relief - of trepidation - of happiness and sadness and realizes she's brushing more tears out of her eyes. Overwhelming, she thinks, it's the only word that she could possibly come up with for the emotion choking her throat. Her mind whirling, her (good) hand reaches for Harper's again, but her knees give out and she sits on the couch.

Her palm - sweaty - squeezes his, but she can't yet manage words. 

He takes her hand again, long fingers curling around her own, and then takes a seat on the couch next to her. His brows furrow momentarily before he raises a hand to rub her upper back, noticing the tears accumulating in her eyes again. If he gave in to it, his eyes would be swimming with them as well.

"I thought I was the one who was supposed to be nervous," he began with a small smile, trying to make her relax again. 

"What is it?" He asked quietly after swallowing a lump in his throat. Even after all these years, he could still tell when Lyndsi wanted to tell him something. 

"I'm just--" She swallows back a chuckle, wondering if Harper knew his hand on her back had the power to calm her heart, soothe her throat and bring a smile to her face better than any Healer ever had. Eyes lifting back to his, her body's leaning naturally back to his before she decided to screw it, let herself chuckle. So she does, and it's bright as she finished, "I guess I'm actually not 'just' anything, hm?" With another chuckle, she answers herself soft, "That's too limiting."

Lyndsi took a breath, squeezing his hand again, placing the joined appendage on her knee, like she was trying to keep him close, keep him with her. (He could never be close enough; she's terrified what she has to tell him would drive him right back out the door.) 

Spit it out Lyndsi, she chides herself but the truth was she was lost in his adoring gaze. 

"I'm happy," it leaves her all at once in a rush of quiet heat as her free hand cups his cheek, "I keep thinking I'm going to wake up." She rubs under his eye with a thumb swipe, gentle, then her own. 

"And then of course that I'm going to jail, for killing the person who dared wake me up." Her words were frank now. Even though she knew she was stalling, knew strangely there was a part of her husband that seemed to already know - she was glad to see the smile on his lips. The one she put there and goddammit, now she had to take it away?

Her heart skips a beat.

"And I'm angry. Miserably so. At all of those who tried so damn hard to take you from me forever, yes," for all her claim of anger, Lyndsi was quiet, qualifying now and not blinking, "but also at...myself. Mostly, this moment, at myself. For believing the lie. For not somehow knowing, when the truth is I think part of me always did know because Harper I--I never loved anyone else, I never even...let anyone else kiss me, because all I could think was how one of the last things you ever said was that my pink lips were yours - and they are, they always have been and always will be, and so I am so angry at myself because what I have to tell you I don't want to - I'd lie, if that didn't make it seem like it was something it never was - I'd just -" oh there was that word again, "-shut up right now, because the last thing in the world I want to do is hurt you. I want to help you." There were tears in her eyes again and her hand hovers over a gaping mouth. "I love you," she repeats, but this time it sounds angry and in shock, like she's struggling to get the words past a mountain of guilt entitled 'It's Truer Than Anything In My Life.' 

She exhales, then meets his gaze, rubbing tears from her eyes.

"Harper." She repeats, but can't get past, "Max and I..." before tears spill down her cheek. 

And there it was, finally out. Though technically she didn't finish the sentence, but she didn't need to. Maybe it was better that way, better that it had no title or word. Despite his love of calculable, observable, and quantifiable facts, he was more than happy to leave the act without a term even if it was just for right now. He supposed it was just another form of denial, something that he would come to regret later.

She had taken their hands and placed it over her knee as she talked, began to build up to the revelation because she hadn't explained. Well, she did explain how she was feeling and he understood it. He knew what he was supposed to say to her words, and he wanted to say them, but he found himself unable to speak for a few minutes while he processed; his gaze was lowered to their hands even if it was mostly unseeing.

He was happy too, still, even if the smile had faded from his face, even if he couldn't feel an overabundance of it anymore, he knew he was still happy. You could be happy and angry at the same time, couldn't you? Lyndsi was, she had just admitted it.

All he could think to himself was that it wasn't fair. Harper had gotten rid of everybody that had caused this, that had allowed this to happen, and that had kept him away from his family. There was nobody else to hurt, nobody else he could scream at, and blame. Except Lyndsi, except Max.

He inhaled through his nose, exhaled the same way as he bit on his bottom lip. Swallowing a lump, he looked back up at Lyndsi, his voice a whisper, "I know. I...suspected." And ignored. He ignored and ignored and refused to think about it and had become as willfully ignorant as his father claimed to be.

There were so many signs. Lyndsi and Max, his back teeth gritted, had never been this awkward. Put in the past several hours she'd barely spoken to him, they'd barely looked at each other, and when they had Lyndsi only moved closer to Harper. Not to mention, Harper had been mocked with the possibility ever since he learned that Max had moved in here to begin with.

 _They wouldn't_ , he used to tell himself after Roswell left him alone, _they would never_. It wasn't often that Harper was dead wrong. Oh, too soon.

Lyndsi had said she never loved another, never kissed another- but he had to leave that train of thought before he started picturing the other things she had done. That more than anything finally jarred him into speaking.

"You had no way of knowing, Lyndsi," he shook his head once, curt, and continued, "I couldn't have expected you to be loyal to a corpse, to a ghost." Harper wondered if she could tell that that particular line had been said by him before.

"And while I'm...relieved, happy, that you didn't find love again that's...selfish of me. I wanted you to be happy, I wanted Al to be happy. I knew there was always a chance you were going to move on and find someone else and...," he had to inhale in order to keep going, his jaw trembling.

"Max, Lyndsi?" He had tried not to let the hurt seep in to his words, but now he couldn't stop it. Out of any man she could have had, his brother? And Max, fucking Max, how could he do this? Now there was a man practically renown for how much tail he caught, and what, he just couldn't wait but to jump on the opportunity?

Was it because she'd thought the same thing - even said it, to that marble slab they could finally break down - that 'should I be loyal to a corpse?' sounds so rehearsed? But it wasn't that which put the knife in her gut. She wouldn't have burdened him with it if it was anyone else..else but Max.

How...how was Harper supposed to compete with that? He who looked like he just stepped out of a bloody alien movie? What did he have to offer anymore? Now he was just someone that had to be taken care of, that had to be nursed back to health. Someone that had left the world whole and has come back broken. 

"He's your brother." Lyndsi spoke so quickly it surprised her, as she had been perfectly silent (save for choking sobs) as he rescued her from having to complete the sentence. He rescued her. Of course he did, Harper was always doing that, even nine and a half years later.

And he was speaking to help her now too-why was he doing that? She was the one in the wrong. He should just yell (thank God he didn't), just...

 _Yes, what a brother,_ he found himself thinking with a malice that would have surprised him had he not spent nearly ten years doing little else but hate. Brothers didn't do this. How could he...how could they...

"I know that's...wrong," she adds quickly, over quick breaths and unsticking her throat, shaking her head, "it's wrong, it's not fair, I don't want to defend it either--" but he asked it of her as a question, 'Max?' she has to finish answering.

"--I was...it honestly, it was just I wanted...you, and he was...close, god that sounds awful. " More tears; she had to free a hand to bury her face into (but her face was dry, that was strange--they were dry heaves?). She mutters into clenched teeth 'awful' on repeat, and how sorry she was, that too, though it all was coming through quick breaths, running words into each other.

Well, he was dead. It was as simple as that. They couldn't have known that he was alive (and suffering). They couldn't have known that he had been trying to get home (and failing). Why should he be angry?

Because he was. Wasn't that enough of a reason? He felt angry, so he was angry, but he couldn't be angry with Lyndsi. Even if he wanted to be, he simply couldn't. He was finally with her again, after all this time. They had a second chance, and he wasn't going to let anything get in his way of that. He wanted his family back, completely, he wanted to be a husband again and a father again.

But where did he start, how did he start?

He swallowed again, nodding his head before somehow finding it in himself to chuckle. Maybe because it was absurd (though he shouldn't find it so, she was being sincere), but he couldn't help but to think that he and Max were barely alike. Even in appearance alone, Max was everything that Harper wasn't.

"Did it mean something?" He asked after rubbing his lips, his eyebrows furrowing. "Is he in love with you? Was it...over, before today?" 

"No." Lyndsi says, wanting that to be her answer for everything. A vehement refusal that anything could exist to stop her and Harper from being together for the rest of their lives (and this time she meant until she died, because she couldn't do it again). 

He'd laughed. It stopped her shaking, that strange bitter sound, and for that Lyndsi was thankful. Beyond that, she was frightened to ask why he laughed, what was funny--she wants his smile back, even as she struggles for one herself. With a soft shudder, she squeezes his hand again, glad she could be vehement again.

"No, Harper, he's not," though she had worried once he was. That had been her preeminent reason for breaking it off. And finally, a question she had a good answer to give (if there was anything good she could say about this).

Good because otherwise he would have to go and kick his ass twice instead of the only once he was considering right now. The knowledge did offer some relief, so he held on to it, allowed it to replace the anger and the hurt. He tried to stop thinking if it was just something they had mutually wanted for some time, stopped thinking of it in general. He didn't want to.

There was that denial trying to take over again. Harper had never been one to run away from his problems, but for the first time in a long time, his body was genuinely leaning towards flight in the fight or flight scenario, without him having to pretend to run away. He didn't know why; Harper had never been afraid to fight with Max. That constituted the majority of their interactions as toddlers.

But he and Lyndsi had rarely fought, and if they had it was always playfully. Maybe that's what he was afraid of.

"Months ago." Her words were firm, even if they were quiet. "It...and I hesitate only because there was no real connection between any of it, not for me," she swallows tightly, "-- it started four years ago, and ended last summer."

 _Four years,_ Harper thought, _that's a long time._ He exhaled, passed a hand over his face quickly. That was only a little less than half of the time he had spent in there.

And then she hears herself trying to explain, though she doesn't know why: what was there to say, how would that help Harper to hear?

"After Al went to Hogwarts. This..." she gestures around her, "goddamn house was so...empty, Harper, so quiet and big and everything in it reminds me of you -- I refused to go in your study for...years. It was empty. I destroyed the kitchen myself once just to be able to owl the same people we had fix it when you blew it up. I was...completely alone." She bites her tongue, feeling guilty because no she hadn't been--not the way Harper had been.

"I wasn't meant to be alone." She mutters, rubbing over lips inexplicably dry. Her gaze is steady on his now, even if her eyes are harder, like chipped ice holding back the floodgates. 

As Lyndsi explained how it felt like for her to be in this house alone, he understood her more and more. He understood it, but it didn't mean he liked it. He hated it, but it was done, and it was over. 

"And it was over months ago," she sums up again quickly, "and quite as a relief to us both." She winced at the idea there had even been an 'us.' "I'm telling you because -- because others know, and if you heard it any other way, it would have seemed like it meant something it never...did."

She rubs her lips again. Harsh. Then drops her hand, still steady, still looking at him.

"I was wrong. And it ended, for the same reason I never could look at anyone else-- Harper, I don't care it's been a decade. I never stopped loving you. There was never anyone else that held a candle to you. I know you probably don't," she swallows, "believe me now, but it's true. And I swear I'll prove it."

The silence was not unusual for Harper. Between them he had always been quiet when she got effervescent: he tended to stare, he tended to merely smile fond unless he was talking about his projects, and then it was the other way around. None were true now. He wasn't even looking at her, but at their hands, and mostly perfectly unseeing. God. Lyndsi holds on to his hand, just grateful he left her that to cling to. 

What was he thinking about, what was he looking at? She couldn't imagine the hell he went through, the terrible things he'd seen -- maybe done, she reminds herself. A chill shivers down her spine. The things those recruited had to do were whispered about all too blatant and loudly in her world. The way Harper murdered Gustav without blinking proved it.

(And now she has to go and add the images of her and Max? Lyndsi shivers.)

"And I've always loved you. Always will. No one will ever love you as much as I do, and that hasn't changed." He paused, swallowing another lump in his throat. "But some things have...Lyndsi," he exhaled, his gaze falling down again, "I'm not..." How could he even begin to explain it?

Utter relief floods her veins when he reasserts his own love. With a small squeeze of his hand she echoes him softly, "Harper, I never doubted you a second in my life, nor your love for me."

She brushes her thumb across his wrist, voice unwavering as she looks on. Now she has the feeling she's the one who doesn't know something important.

"I'm not about to start now." A brave smile crossed Lyndsi's cheeks, and she exhales. "I know it's not going to be the same-I do, I know. But we'll survive. We will, okay, because I'm afraid I'm still selfish enough that I'm not going to let you go again. Ever."

Unsticking her throat and reaching for his upper back, she rubs a small circle, tentative, afraid he wasn't going to let her for a few moments. How was she going to prove she doesn't care what he had to do now? Lyndsi did better with plans, with data quantifiable; she had been in love with the man in front of her too long. That she knew how and why he could do anything he did -- that he could tell her anything he felt he had to get off his chest and she was going to love him the same?

Not the same, actually. More.

"Not.." She echoes, unsure. "What is it? Harper, whatever it is, you can tell me--I swear," she braces her back, holds on to his shoulder and says almost with a tease, "I'm sturdier than I look."

That made one of them. Harper had been stupid enough to delude himself into thinking things could go back to where they were before he left, even if the delusion didn't last for maybe more than a few minutes. But being back just proved how much things had changed. Ten years of his life he had missed, than had been robbed from him.

That wasn't the only thing that he'd been robbed of.

"I'm not," he replied to her tease, smiling despite it as he looked at her again, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. He didn't look sturdy at all and he was even less so. Especially now, all he felt like was a big open wound, just one wrong step away from festering.

"I'm worried," he altered after another couple of minutes of just looking at her. Harper knew that he would be content to just look at her for hours if they let him.

"I'm worried that I won't be able to give you all you need anymore."

As she listened, she finds herself smiling half in amusement, half in soft appreciation even with the thought she'd prove him wrong. Relief still prevalent in her veins, she tilts closer to him (thank God he hadn't moved away, whatever her revelations to him). 

"I don't care." She says first. "Whatever you had to do. You...can tell me anything Harper, that's always been true. I want to hear it. I...want to be here for you. With you."

Her hand curls in his grasp as much as her lip do as he smiles at her. Harper was staring again. He was staring in that way he used to say was the only proper way to get a true look at her, to really understand how beautiful she was -- and all Lyndsi could do was blush. Blush and gasp in tearful (despite her dry cheeks) relief. Her hand squeezed his, comforting and reassuring. Lyndsea couldn't comprehend this notion that she wasn't enough for him or that he wasn't enough for her. Didn't he understand? He was more than she deserved. He always had been.

"I hate that you should have to worry about that." She offers, quiet, plainly not understanding. "Whatever you have to give...I'm here to help. Harper, you are my husband. For better for worse, for rich or poor, from that day for all time. The father of my son and the love of my life. I have spent nine and a half years dreaming about you. The fact that you're really here? That it doesn't have to be just a dream? That's all I ever wanted, Harper. You're all I want." Lyndsea, confused (and relieved yet, that he wasn't asking further about Max) squeezed his hand and comfort once more but now she slid closer to him on the couch wrapping her fingers through his.

Harper heard her, he was listening, and as badly as he wanted to believe every word, there was a part of him that couldn't. A part of him that was supposed to know better, but still couldn't understand how Lyndsi could look at him with such love and adoration instead of disgust and fear. Harper was mangled, he was torn, and his physical qualities aside, he had shown he was a murderer in front of her very eyes. Harper barely remembered how he used to be before all these scars. He barely remembered what he was supposed to do.

Why shouldn't she have found comfort in another? Especially now when it felt comfort was just something else he wouldn't be able to provide her? Lyndsi was so beautiful, and she was right, she was never meant to be alone. Better alone than in bad company his mother always used to say, but Harper hadn't stopped being selfish.

And how badly he wanted to believe her.

He'd dreamt of her too all these years, as well as of Alcott. Most of the time, it wasn't while he was sleeping. He didn't sleep soundly and never for long. His dreams were had wide awake, as daydreams and sometimes even as hallucinations. But Lyndsi was real now. He could touch her, feel her, and when he stared she didn't vanish from his sight.

He leaned in closer to her, breathing her in and rested his forehead against hers and closes his eyes. Harper didn't want to be angry, he didn't want to be upset or doubtful, he just wanted to be happy. Just happy. He was home, he was with his family and a wife he didn't deserve, why were a whirlwind of emotions fighting for control?

"I love you," was all he could find to say, for truer words there were none. 

Honestly, Lyndsi thinks it's more frightening to her the clear doubt in Harper's gaze when she said all she wants is him, than anything she saw him do that night--certainly more than a few scars on his neck and arms. It was his eyes she was trapped in. What did she expect? Telling him she had sex with his brother? Lyndsi shivers under the soft look that flutters across her husband's face. 

It was a striking difference, she realized: Harper hadn't spent a day of their marriage before believing he was inadequate. He teased her about being high maintenance, sure, he played with making things up to her -- but however difficult she was, he'd always been her one exception, and he knew it. It hadn't been since Hogwarts, since she spied him doing push-ups on the lawn while at practice, that Harper had spent any time trying to impress her. It hadn't ever been his physique anyways that sold her (though he had grown very fine) - it was his heart. The quiet adoration and compassion -- and yes, he killed Gustav, and yes he'd been about to kill that other woman, but he stopped with only a look, hadn't he?

He was drawing her in and she went willing - eager, turning to settle in a quiet embrace. Enveloped in warmth, her nail traces his bottom lip as she looks wide-eyed and steady at the scars, close now. Lyndsi doesn't blink. Getting used to them would take time, she realizes, but in a strange way she thinks them more beautiful. If she could make them mean that for him...

The man she married was here, somewhere, Lyndsi was sure of it -- was sure even, that he wanted to be him again. She wants to help heal him, not rip him apart further. He couldn't take it. Neither could she.

Harper's eyes closed. Lyndsi follows. Their breaths mingle, calm, warm. Having the opportunity to simply share the same space, intimate... it was everything.

And he'd spent all this time coming back to her fighting for their family, making deals with the devil just to keep them safe. Today, he was responsible for the end of a reign of terror, dozens if not hundreds of lives had been saved. How on Earth could Harper believe he wasn't enough? What had they done to him? The thought sets her blood to boil, settles in her teeth.

What he said makes her eyes open too, taking their joined hands and resting them over her chest, hoping he could hear the resounding beat as she swore, "With all my heart, Harper."

Then she kissed him, this time with a promise. 

Harper nodded against her forehead before pulling back if only to look into her eyes easier as she spoke. They had taken vows and said them in front of friends, family, and loved ones (plus a couple of not-so loved ones that really needed to be invited otherwise it would have just been plain rude). He had meant them then as he did, and so did she. (The past four years didn't count, he told himself insistently, they just didn't.) For better or for worse, and right now this could turn out to be a little of both, even if he hoped it was mostly the former.

He swallows again, smile back on his face because he's stubborn enough to keep it there and then leans in to kiss her again, raising a hand to cup her cheek and hold her to him. He sighed into her mouth after a few moments and pulled himself away, opening his eyes again as his chest rose up and down with his normal unsteady breathing. He knew he had to look at that properly, at all of him honestly.

"Our room," he started after debating on a million things to say, like if he should warn her about his scars, or his insomnia, "Do you sleep in our room still?" Was it still theirs to begin with, or had it become just hers? Would he find himself a stranger to it, or worse, find evidence of being replaced there? It was a bedroom after all.

But then again, you should never place limits on a Brackner.

"Ours." Lyndsi whispered it, because frankly it had never been anything else. The giant panda bear he gave her when they learned about Alcott still sat on the dresser; their wedding photo was on her vanity, as their ring was ever on her finger. 

And yes - she packed away his things, his clothes (but Jimmy and Lauren had been unpacking it since midnight) - yes, she had moved his dresser a few inches over, hiding it behind an antique screen, but the rest she hadn't touched. It was the first time Jimmy had been let in - that any man had been near the room in almost a decade.

Well--

Fingers brushing against his chin and tucking her thumb in his collar even as she perks back, she smiles still.

"Al did sleep in our bed when he was still six, and a few times when he was seven though that I've been sworn to secrecy on -but otherwise," the softness in tone flickers to her lips, "ours, for all time, luv. And if you can ensure I never have to sleep alone in it again - and I don't mean the panda bear," she teases, dry, "that's...all I need, Harper."

Harper smiled, nodding his head as he was happy to hear it. After so many years of 'sleeping' on cold, hard ground, or hung up, and then on that old, thin mattress, Harper was sure that a proper mattress was going to feel unknown to him. The softness of it would be something else to get used to again, he knew.

"Never again," he shook his head as he promised her so. He had slept, and not slept, alone for long enough. If he had known for how much time, he would have spent less time in his study tinkering with his potions and experiments. Time would pass in a blink and before he knew it, he would be trying to sneak back into their room. Lyndsi always caught him no matter what hour he arrived, whether it was midnight or sunrise.

She still had that panda bear. That made him smile wider, and reminded him of her small memento that he carried with him always. Before he could think about it too much however, Lyndsi's words distracted him.

Clearing her throat, she kisses his cheekbone once (accidental brush; she wasn't aware it was actually up that high) and then tugs up on their hands.

"I'll show you." Lyndsi offers, and then, now with a bit of a sly tone, "If you let me slip into my nightgown first; this bra is--well." Shrugging, she hasn't let go of his hand as she stands up. 

"Constricting."

There's a sudden tightness in his throat that he tries to dislodge with a chuckle as he stands up at her behest. He'd been blushing all day for the smallest of reasons and he was threatening to blush now.

"Of course," he replied with a half smirk and for the first time worried how the expression would make the scar at the corner of his mouth look. Passing his free hand over his mouth for a moment, he began walking with his wife towards their bedroom.

 _'Of course'_ , she thinks with a soft chuckle, looking at those eyes that knew her so well. It was a response from a decade ago, but there was something else in it now that makes a small blush rise on her own already-pink skin. Maybe it wasn't the bra that was constricting. 

She let's his hand go when they reach their room. Ostensibly, it was to go to her wardrobe and fetch the gown (when Lauren finished unpacking, she'd ordered her longtime ladies maid and friend to actually simply go to sleep). In all seriousness, she was fighting a rising...odd...shyness. 

Looking sidelong after shutting the door, her heart flutters seeing Harper take in the room -- their room. Finally, she didn't have to stumble over the linguistics of it all.

Black lace in hand, she whispers (because it seemed the kind of moment to be quiet), "I'll be right back."

Then she slips into the(ir) bathroom, shuts the door and breathes a sigh. Knowing she was playing silly didn't seem to help her stop doing it. The bra came off with a snap before she so much as unbuttoned the sweater.

Nope, it definitely wasn't the bra's fault.

Harper hadn't seen her bare in all this time, she realized, and though it seemed silly to be worried -- vain, especially aside the scars on his neck and arms -- she couldn't help a shiver at the thought. His wasn't the only body that had changed; after Alcott she worked hard to regain a semblance of her figure. After her miscarriage though, Harper had to remind her to eat. When he wasn't there to do it, her sister had...but she still ate like a rabbit, according to Max--

\--well, ow. 

Oh, Sel, Lyndsi thinks in a mental prayer to her older sister, wherever you went (stay safe, she always has to start with that) -- and ring me, I need to know what to do. 

He took in a breath as he looked around their room, noticing the differences first, but ultimately deciding to focus on the things that were familiar to him. His hand slipped out of Lyndsi's as she moved to grab her nightgown, and he nodded as she said she would be right back and then disappeared into the bathroom.

Harper breathed out again, passing a hand through thin hair and then closing his eyes. For the first time in years, the rapid beating of his heart was his own private business. His hands shook with his growing nerves and he put them in his pockets, a force of habit more than anything else, his fingers brushing the smooth surface of the lipstick case.

He didn't think he had been this nervous even when they were teenagers. It was more than nerves, though, it was this...growing anxiety. He should have warned her about his scars, the fact that they covered the length of his body, not just the visible skin. Never has the phrase 'damaged goods' been more appropriate.

He walked over to his dresser, sliding a drawer open. Harper imagined inside that must have collected would have already been cleaned by Lauren and Jimmy. He passed a finger over the collar of one of his shirts. He'd have to buy new clothes too. It'd been almost a decade, the style had changed significantly enough, as he had seen already (at least being in France and in the company of fashionista werewolves had kept him aware in that department.)

The panda bear was still there, just as Lyndsi had said. He inhaled and exhaled again, willing himself to swallow his anxiety and growing wariness. He was getting it back, like he'd told that bastard before ending his life once and for all, he was taking back everything that he ever lost. He just had to.

Shedding sweater and slacks, she soon stood nude -apart from her bandaged arm. Yeah, that's sexy, she thinks rueful. There were circles under worn eyes. Chest half as perky as she remembered, her hair came down longer and uneven as it always did when she sprayed it up. Harper used to make it worse, running fingers through it and tangling to all hell in private moments at dinner or banquets. Splashing her face (Lyndsi, stop staring at yourself), she's thankful she'd already removed the make-up -- okay wait, when was the last time she shaved?!

The dark nightgown was a welcome curtain, even knowing Harper had always loved to simply look at her in the light. The first year they were married windows, especially near sunrise, had been hazardous; he'd forget whatever he was saying seeing her in front of one. 

The smile on the woman in the mirror was unrecognizable.

That alone drove her back to the door; she steps into their room hugging her discarded clothes to her chest - letting the bandaged arm rest atop it. Her gaze soft, words were breathy as she watched him.

"Harper." It wasn't a question, though she tilts her head to see what he was looking at.

Turning around as he heard Lyndsi's voice, his hand left his pocket still holding the lipstick as he looked at her. If his heart had been beating wildly before, now it stopped. His throat was dry as he swallowed, watching her with appreciative awe. After all this time, she still managed to take his breath away.

Whatever he'd been looking at lost all meaning in a moment. She forgot. If she hadn't been blushing before, she was now watching his rapid darting gaze roaming over her bare neck, the crease of her lace, the gap in her legs, the line of her skirt, parted lips, loose curls. Something in her throat stuck. It took her all her remaining breath to speak--when she noticed that he wasn't breathing either.

"You're beautiful," the words left his mouth as an extension of his thoughts, with a mind of their own. He had to swallow again. 

"Oh, Harper." She took a flurry of steps, ignoring the cliche of her relief-filled exhale as she raised her hands to his chest. It was still covered; she didn't notice until her palm touches the fabric.

"Breathe," she whispers, rubbing back and forth, lips flicking up. What might be unfamiliar in his scars, thin hair, loose skin - was forgotten in his eyes. They look the same. 

"I'm here," she says, soft.

His exhale came out of him in an intermittent chuckle, placing a hand over hers on his chest. It fell and rose under her touch, as if it needed it to keep going and that wasn't so entirely outrageous to consider. It was her that kept him going. The thought of her, the memory of her, the sheer fact that even as he rotted away in a dungeon, she was up here. He did everything only just to see her one more time; he would have been content with just a glance. Now that he got to stay, he was overjoyed.

"Sorry, I'm," nervous, anxious, excited, fearful, unsure, unknowing, happy. So happy. Instead of finishing he smiled, kissed her once and then placed his other hand on hers and passed her the metallic little tube, putting it under her fingers and then cupping her hand so that she could grip it herself.

Glad he didn't try and finish the sentence -- there was no pathetic repetition of 'just', Lyndsi rubs her thumb over where she could hear his heart. It pounds, heavy to support a chest that seemed to take her mandate of breathe with the seriousness of a disciple listening to God descending on high. Then he steals her lips - his, she thinks, always his - and she knows his lungs had it backwards on which of them was holy. 

Lyndsi doesn't break the kiss until she realizes he's trying to give her something (more than the life he was pouring into her already?!). Tilting her head down, fighting for breath, she gives up abruptly when she realizes what it was. A lipstick tube - gold, though it seemed rusted, of her favorite shade, how had he gotten that for her when she hadn't left his side since --

\-- oh. No. It wasn't just her favorite shade. It -was hers,- she remembers dimly giving it to him, wrapping his fingers around it as he stole the last kiss they shared a decade before, teasing him he was insatiable, that he just wanted her to stay with him alone always. Always.

The lipstick itself had melted inside the case in the brief moments it had been in the fire before his hands reached in past the flames and pulled it out, along with his wedding and ring and the only photo he had of his wife and son at the time. But time had cooled it again, especially in those dungeons, and it was solid once more. It didn't have the curved shape that lipsticks tended to have so that they could be better applied. Instead, the lipstick was mangled, half of it coated and stuck to the inside of the tube. It was a poor imitation of how it used to be. Despite how it had come back, rusted outside, nearly destroyed inside, it had basically the same components than when it first started out. And most women would throw a tube like this out, but Lyndsi held on to it tighter as her eyes started watering with emotion again.

"You...kept it-," she tries to say, fighting the overwhelming surge of emotion in her throat and nearly choking, "Harper...how did you..." Her thumb brushes over where she engraved her name on it, then exhales and looks up with watery eyes, breathless and smiling. His nose brushes hers as she asks again.

"How?"

He smiled as his nose brushed hers and nodded slowly at her quiet questions, before putting words to his answers.

"I hid it. Along with my ring and a picture. I hid it every day and when I was alone I took it back out and held on to it. I held on to you," he used his free hand to cup her cheeks and swipe a thumb under her eye to collect any errant tears. 

_It had been a joke_ , she thinks wildly, glad at least that Harper had stopped tears from falling. Eyes rimmed red, the last thing she honestly needs now is it start sniffling. The burn in her arm seemed to have settled somewhere in her chest now, or throat perhaps, considering how harsh her breath and warm his words were making her. Held on to her, she thinks, thumb tangling with his over the faded inscription. It was a joke, just a game, and Harper had turned it into a stirring memento. Though it looked like it had been through hell as much as the two of them, it was there, they both were holding on to it. Still shiny. Still gold.

"You're too much." She giggles weakly, searching his eyes as she repeats it, "Just too much, Harper, I can't even speak."

"No such thing as too much," he argued back instinctively, his smile turning playful for those few moments. Nevertheless, her reaction made him feel lighter, and calmer. 

So instead she kisses him. This time she lets her arms - one hand still clinging to the tube - fall around his neck, kissing him every few seconds as she brushes her thumb underneath the collar of his shirt. Back and forth. She wanted to rip it off of him, frankly, but something was stalling her - telling her to go slow.

She brought her lips to his and kissed him, bringing him closer by her arms around his neck. Kissing back, his arms were at his side for a few moments before he raised them tentatively. Finally placing them at her waist, feeling her curves underneath the thin material of her nightgown, Harper takes in a shaky breath.

He exhales against her lips before they meet in another kiss again, his fingers sinking gradually to grip, half because that way they didn't shake as much. She felt good though, maybe a bit too good, as the same clenching feeling that he felt as he was overwhelmed with the family appeared in his gut. And as her fingers moved to a button on his shirt after a few minutes of just fiddling with his collar, brought his hands back and grabbed her wrists, wincing as he pulled back.

"Wait," he licked his lips, exhaling again and the finally opening his eyes. "Don't...the scars, they're-," he takes in another breath and after pursing his lips he finished with a whisper, "-it's not pretty."

The sudden clench on her wrists was not the first indication something was wrong for Lyndsi -- the hesitance in holding on to her waist when once he would have grabbed and lifted her into his arms makes her wonder briefly if he wasn't able to pick her up. When he seizes her hands, she realizes oh yes, he could physically - however shaky he was, there was a wealth in reserves of strength. 

It startles her. She stammers out trying to catch her breath, blinks, hazy and quick, in a hooded daze now, love and lust somewhat tangled in a web with her confusion. Had she started to undo his shirt? Truly? Well, she supposes--she did want to, it was a natural progression. Or maybe she was surprised by his sudden vehemence. Looking at where he holds her, she stays balanced on her toes before falling, letting him catch her against his chest.

His movements previous to that had been careful, slow, soft, and deliberate because he knew how rough his hold had gotten, how rough you had to be down there to survive. Harper didn't want her to be afraid of him, not even accidentally or rather especially not accidentally. He didn't want his instinct to continue being detrimental.

She fell back into his chest and he caught her, or rather held her to him as he caught his breath. What did catch him off guard was her revealing that she wanted to see the marks. He swallowed, a lump stuck in his throat as he deliberated. It wasn't as if he could hide them forever (scars made with dark magic don't heal and they don't glamour away), but why would she choose to see them and why right at this second?

Then she gets it. As breath steadied her mouth closes, and she tries to nod, grateful for the warning. At least...until the images. 

"I want to see." She says, breathy, but steeling her jaw. "I-I mean, if you're comfortable showing me, Harper, I understand if you aren't yet."

His jaw set in quick determination as Lyndsi expressed her understanding and understatement if he wasn't comfortable. Truth was that he wasn't comfortable. He didn't feel comfortable kissing his wife, or holding her to him and he hated that, so he would force himself out of his comfort zone until it became natural again.

"Okay." He swallowed and then placed his hands on her shoulder as he took a step back. Bringing his hands back in pure stubbornness, he reached for own buttons and started undoing them.

For all her surprise at his quick jerk, the seizure of her wrists, Lyndsi still knew he was the more startled. Their breathing had been harsh since Notre Dame, but now his was uneven, his throat revolving as if he couldn't keep it wet and his hands shook. Biting on a swollen lip, Lyndsi tries not to be hurt when he pulls back, keeping hands on her shoulder to ensure she won't follow. 

Instead, she notes he has difficulty drawing deep breaths - the fear mingled with determination in his gaze - and backs the few steps to their bed without taking her eyes off him. She sits, swallowing hard, wanting him to follow. It seems too likely to her that he's going to fall. 

Despite his fingers jerking around the buttons, she doesn't offer to undo it. Harper had to do it herself. Skin reveals slowly, but by the third button, she leaps a hand to her mouth to prevent a gasp. It flutters weakly anyway.

'Not pretty'? Had she ever heard an understatement so pathetically inept to cover it, even in Britain? The lines she saw up his arms continued--some black, some faded red, all angry, jagged skin with haphazard strokes like Picasso had been the one to torture her husband. Bruises map his stomach, dark blue. How recently had they been made? 'Personal punching bag', the distressed shout on a ravaged throat echoes in her ear; breath still weak in her throat. One line is distinct on his chest; even precious, prim, Lyndsi knew a lash's mark when she saw it and guesses they continue on his back. Where his skin wasn't discolored it was too white to be healthy, and she lifts a hand slowly to count along ribs clearly defined. How could she be thinking about sex right now? Harper needs food, bandages, and...well--alcohol, she thinks. Something to kill memory and pain (oh, that's why her mind leaped to sex).

Fear passes through her gaze as she thinks-it's unfair. First Alcott turns into a wolf, has to break his own bones every month, and now her husband was -- well...she struggles for words considering 'skeletal' 'damaged' 'broken' and 'ravaged' cross her mind, but she won't say them, she can't, she hurt her husband enough for one lifetime. This was Harper--the boy who swapped into her art class to spend more time with her, the man who gave her the baby boy that taught her to smile again. More than that, today he'd--

\--well, yes, he'd been a killer before her eyes. Could anyone in the world look at these scars and not understand why? Her husband, the genius -- he'd achieved the impossible, overcame that goddamn marble slab, the bastard who used him, and enormous pain physically to come home. Broken? Lyndsi met Rachelle. She spoke with her for days about Hans and what the pack did for each other (to each other). She spoke with D'Grey; saw the men and women in those cells and Eliza briefly enough, met Julio in the Ministry. Harper was the only one she knew who didn't help the Death Eaters with a sense of pride or loyalty. Had he changed, yes, obviously, she's only beginning to see how much. But broken? Ha, Lyndsi could laugh (might have, actually, a chuckle seems to echo in her ears again as she draws slow, shaky breaks). Harper was the only one who didn't break.

But he looks miserable. No wonder he was shaky, no wonder he was so terrified to show her - show anything - his bare skin resembled more a kid's puzzle than anything human. (She won't think of the word monster.) Though she can't help but think of Frankenstein briefly -- because the 'monster' in that had truly been Victor himself, the doctor, not the resurrected one who didn't get a name. That man with his patchwork quilt of skin and appendages, might have killed, but his genius and morality was unparalleled.

She stops thinking about it though, as she finally recovers some breath when her fingers touch his ribs, press between them. That ghastly Halloween tale, is a tragedy. Lyndsi refuses to let this be.

No tears fell, though her wild gaze only settles now, hand finally lowering from her lips as she looks back to his eyes. They were kind. They were fearful, petrified, anxious, and almost expectent for her disapproval -- but kind. She has the sense he was trying to tell her he understood why she couldn't be with him before she opens her mouth and says a word, and that made her angriest of all. Was she that shallow? Did her husband of all these years honestly think marks and bruises were going to make her love him less? Yes, she was startled, yes she was breathy and enraged, but for all her vanity...he was just proving to her he was a soldier.

Except there was another underlying tone in the way he'd turned his head, dropped his gaze and nodded - the way he shook. 'I wouldn't want me either', she thinks he's saying in every inch, and it puts fire in her throat. The man hung on to her lipstick, how could he have forgotten what it meant? Harper, she wants to chide, Harper, insatiable and lovely, come back. 

Words die in her throat as she places both hands below his ribs now, eyes focused on a twist of skin near his heart apart from looking up at him once. Determination had replaced any fear, anger any sadness, but when she saw his eyes all she could think to give him was love: food, bandages, alcohol, and yes even sex - they weren't enough, not nearly.

"Not pretty." She agrees, because it wasn't, and it couldn't matter to her less. Then she lifts herself slow, leaning to press her lips to the twist, lingering and brushing an open mouth across the map of scars and skin, soft, taking time to find every patch, holding his stomach with a gentle firmness even as she stills on the lash mark near his waist, tongue tracing it just once. She doesn't once flinch. 

Harper watched her sit at the foot of their bed so that she could have a better look and tried not to flinch. Yes, that was the right height to be able to look upon it properly. He tried to steady herself for her reaction, keeping his eyes on her face. He had to see it, he couldn't turn away, no matter how much it hurt, and it would hurt.

He wasn't even halfway done but as skin began to show Lyndsi brought a hand to her mouth in horror. With another shaky exhale he continued to undo the buttons until they were all off. He moved the shirt off his shoulders and let it fall to the floor.

Some of them were recent and he'd had no time to take care of them, and also no reason to. Now he wished he had. The majority of them however, they were scars he'd been given from the very beginning. It was the oldest scars that were the most difficult to get rid of.

He didn't blame Lyndsi for her horror and potential disgust, hell, he didn't even want to look at them. Yet Harper couldn't help thinking it'd be less painful than looking at her expression. Lyndsi looked up at him and he held her gaze, fearful and expectant.

His fingers against his ribs cut off his breath for a few moments before he works for deep breath. Relax, he chided himself. It was made easier as she finally spoke, agreeing with his earlier statement, making him chuckle breathily, nodding his head in awe and confusion. That was it? That's all that she had to say about it?

Lyndsi had been a Brackner for too long. She let her actions do the talking for her instead.

His surprise got caught in his throat as she leaned forward to place kisses on his marred, disfigured, and just plain ugly skin. His hands trembled at his side and his knees threatened to shake. He closed his eyes as he felt them sting with tears again, opening them as he inhaled sharply as her tongue traced the raised skin of the whip mark. How could someone so beautiful bear to have her mouth on something so ugly?

"Lyndsi...what," he wiped at his eyes quickly, wincing, even as he tried not to let his jaw tremble, but locking up would only make it worse, he knew that. 

But what could he do? Focus on the good feelings? Her mouth was warm without burning, soft like her fingers holding him in place. And it was nice, it felt good, but he couldn't get lost in it. His mind was too wrapped up in its twisted self.

The shock and ache in his exclamation, his sigh of her name, buries in her throat. Her stomach clenches. Lyndsi, she thinks unmoved as she breathes, soft on his skin -- Lyndsi, Lyndsi, Lyndsi. How she missed being that. But the Lyndsi who had been married to him before likely would have quipped 'I'd have thought what I was doing was obvious.' This Lyndsi stalls, forehead resting beneath the curve of rib-bone. Truth was it wasn't obvious now, because she didn't know what she was doing: she just knew she loved him, with every fiber of her being, and it hurt her to see him so...shaky, so fearful, so in pain. That wasn't right, she thinks with a shiver, thumb caressing. Harper was larger than life. 

Looking up after a breathy exhale, she tugs gently-everything she does is gentle and curved, like she was trying to make herself into a coat to cover him in softness, warmth, love. There's a plead in her gaze as she tugs, wanting him to sit with her. 

"Harper," she said, "Do you remember why I gave you that lipstick tube in the first place?" 

Funny. Ten minutes ago, Lyndsi hadn't recognized it, not immediately. Now here she was reminding him what he had to know.

"You were insatiable, and I was late yes--but I didn't give it to you as a prop. I gave it to you, so I could be with you always. Always. I wanted to stay, Harper, I always wanted to stay, and somewhere in that big brain of yours there must be stored the definition of 'always.' I love you. Evidence of a bastard's ignorance and hatred - they can't make that untrue. I won't let them. I'm insatiable for you too," finally she was smiling again, "but I'm not talking about lust. In the last six hours you've made me feel more alive than I have since I gave you that tube. I'm here, okay, and I know I'm -- I'm ill-prepared, but we can do whatever you want, whatever you need. We have all the time in the world now, for everything. If that's what you can do in six hours, well...forgive me for being a little overeager?"

She stayed looking at his eyes this whole time, and now raises a nail to her bottom lip, eyes shiny with the imp's grin that floats nervously across her cheeks. 

Harper sat down next to her on the bed, a part of him grateful that he didn't have to rely on his knees to keep him standing any longer because he didn't know for how much time he would have lasted anyways. 

He looked back to her eyes again once he was seated, licking his bottom lip as it dried. The saliva would only serve to help dry the lips faster, and yet it was an instinct, like a parched man out at sea couldn't help but to drink the salt water. So much for survival instincts.

He actually had to think about her question because the answer was instant or obvious. The lipstick that had started off as a joke had become a tether to him, but he had to remember how he'd gotten it. Harper hadn't wanted her to leave, and he couldn't stop kissing her. Insatiable was the word she was using now to describe him nearly ten years previous. He chuckled, remember and nodded along softly, listening.

Always, what a word. He did love her that way too, always and forever. So why was it difficult for him to believe the same of her? Because so many things had changed, that was why. Because he wasn't the same person she had fallen in love with, because maybe he couldn't be that same person anymore. He wanted to, how badly he wanted to.

He knew it wasn't lust, nothing about him at that moment could inspire lust. Not his ravaged appearance, or his hesitant movements, or his shaky, anxious attitude. Had it ever been about lust between them? He was never a great beauty, and she had always been out of his league, that had never changed, just him. She'd loved him then too. 

They were both ill-prepared. It wasn't like they could consult a pamphlet of how to jump back into your relationship after ten years of separation, and even if a pamphlet or instruction manual like that existed, he doubted it would help much given their specific situation.

He chuckled again at her description of being overeager and nodded again, understanding, smiling again and breathing easier. 

"There's nothing to forgive. What I want, what I need is you. I'm never letting you go again."

Lyndsi would have preferred a clearer instruction besides needing her - because she wasn't sure how to do that, beyond sitting in place and not moving, when her words and actions seemed to inspire such anxiety as much as relief in him. Then again, she knew instinctively what he meant. In that moment? Anything Harper did was only going to make her love him. How long was this honeymoon feeling going to last? 

Even if she was furious, frightened, irate, irritated, lost, confused, blushing, insatiable, unsatisfied, sad, unsure, hurt and they all were true to a degree. Even if he was those things (even more true), Lyndsi could not imagine an emotion as all-consuming as her love. He only had to sit there. She has his love in return, what possibly more could she ever need? His breaths and heartbeats were stirred to a wild frenzy for her (beauty? love? self? all three.)--she wants that, entire, and has. 

Smile unchanged even as she shares a chuckle, she lifts her hand gently to tangle his fingers.

"You have me," she swears, then looks down, screwing her nose and eyebrows up-this time with the critical gaze she gave Alcott when he skinned his knees as a toddler. "Tell me what I can do. Do they...hurt? I have your potions to regrow skin, and...like, aloe." Her lips twitch at the suggestion. Skin care against wrinkles she understood, against dark burns or whip scars? Not so much. 

The bruises though, she could use balm. If Harper, the genius healer who still wasn't letting her bandaged arm move unnecessarily even when they were kissing, would actually let her treat him.


	5. Parfait Yogurt

Parfait yogurt, that had to hold all his answers. Or so Max thought, staring at the crinkled edges and prodding it repeatedly with his spoon as he sat propped on a bar stool. Poke. The container sat next to his mobile.  
  
When he heard Zoe's door open behind him, he starts talking immediately.  
  
"If I call him and he doesn't know, I should tell him, right? Or not? Lyndsea wanted to do it so if she hasn't--I mean I don't want this to just not be said, then it seems like something it wasn't. Isn't. But I told him I'd call. So if I don't call, will he see that as respect, or my trying to ignore and dodge him? But what if I call and he does know and it's like I'm trying to slam the affair down his throat?"  
  
Talking, rambling, same difference. Shifting in the flannel pants that suddenly seemed too hot (even though it was snowing outside), he made apparently the fatal mistake of turning in the stool, ankles hooked through the rods supporting him to regard his friend.  
  
Zoe meanwhile snatched the phone up. Beep, beep -- she was dialing! Zoe! Startling, his head shakes furiously quick, something the Rabbit on his yogurt would have done with the long, floppy pink ears wrapping around his neck as he tried to reach for it without standing up.  
  
"No, no wait, don't-"  
  
Beep, beep, beep. Too late. Sorry silly Brackner, Trix are for kids. Not cuckholding bastard brothers.  
  
Catching the box as she throws it back at him, he wishes his reflexes were less apt. If it broke, he wouldn't have to pick it up. Staring dumbly at his smart phone, he mumbles out "...Thanks."  
  
Her eyes were too full of knowledge to look at. Then he presses the white thing to his ear and prays it's Lyndsea or Alcott or Sandor or even at this moment *Rachelle*, who picked up but knew it would be Harper with his luck.  
  
The ringing phone was mostly drowned out as everybody walked in and out of the kitchen. Harper was glad to know that ordinarily, this would still bother Cook. He could tell by the measured breathing even with the smile on her face. This was a special occasion, one she had assured Harper that she was elated with herself. Harper didn't doubt her, but he also didn't doubt the fact that she thought of the kitchen as her temple, and it was currently overrun with Brackners putting in their inputs for breakfast.  
  
So as they all started moving towards one of the more casual dining rooms, a ringing phone was mostly ignored except for the little shout of 'telefonoooo' from Rosa who was halfway down the hall.  
  
Harper being the closest to it, walked over and saw the caller ID flashing on the screen. He let it ring for a few more moments as he deliberated, swallowing tight in his throat. Finally, just when he decided he was going to answer just to tell Max to sod off, he lifted the phone to his ear and kept silent.  
  
There's nothing I want to say to you would be a lie, a filthy lie because he had plenty to say, so he didn't consider that at all. What he did want to do was scream, and curse, and punch his brother in the face and break his nose and leave him permanently disfigured. Harsh? Yeah, maybe, but let's not compare grievances here before he got really angry.  
  
He switched the phone to his other ear and then cleared his throat, deducing to push off the burden of correspondence for the moment by simply greeting, "Hello?"  
  
That had to be one of the angriest 'hellos' Max had ever heard in his life. Caller ID was evidently not his friend today. He should have used Zoe's phone. Or maybe he just shouldn't have called. Could he hang up considering he had the answer he'd been looking for?  
  
Yes, that's what he should do, he should sit in arrogant silence on the phone with his brother and then hang up on him after sleeping with his wife. Max rolled eyes at himself, swallowed hard and rubbed over his throat.  
  
"Hola, hermano." His answer was short and awkward. "I just was calling-as I uh, promised I would-has breakfast already started then?"  
  
Yes, he probably should have said something about the anger in Harper's curt greeting, but he considered himself not cowardly just because he didn't hang up. Max wasn't going to win any prizes at brotherhood anytime soon anyway.  
  
Hermano, at that he had to restrain a wince or a glower, he wasn't sure what it would have actually come out as. It didn't sound mocking but to Harper that's how it felt. He moved his free hand to his pocket as he noticed his hand clenching as he waited for Max to continue. Any and all replied he had for the word 'brother', he couldn't say over the phone. He deserved the chance to say it face to face; Max deserved to deal with it face to face.  
  
"It's about to." He looked now down the hall in the direction of the dining room they were all gathering in, as if suddenly reminded this conversation wasn't private. Pursing his lips, he looked forward again, focusing his gaze on a spot on the wall as if it had done him the insult. Insult was putting it nicely.  
  
"I'd say you're welcome to join us but it wouldn't be true on my part."  
  
"I had a feeling I wasn't." Max said, abruptly calm. It was better to him to hear the anger, frankly; if his awkward 'Right....' had gotten cut off in his throat before, now he could talk freely. Well, not freely. But he knew where he stood (Zoe's kitchen, where she wasn't even pretending not to be listening)-he knew his brother was mad. That was easier to deal with than the lack of knowing.  
  
Fingers fumbling around the edge of the aluminum foil on his yogurt, he took a breath before continuing.  
  
"That's-uhm-why I called. I don't want it-uh-I don't-uh-to force my way in." Smooth, Max. He wipes his hand off on his tank, irritated. "But I would like to talk to you about this. Face to face. Your fist, my broken nose, you know."  
  
Amazing how much steadier his voice was when he joked badly.  
  
"That was pretty close to being ironic," he remarked dry, for something to say than any other reason. Max was hesitant with his words, his sentences filled with an intermittent pause. It helped Harper to be the one with steady words, even sentences. It was easier to tell himself that he was in control that way; that his clenched fist wasn't in his pocket was trembling.  
  
"You read my mind," he swallowed before speaking again. "Where are you staying?"  
  
Ironic. Well, Max was never one to quibble with his genius older brother on matters of semantics -- but he was pretty sure this was coincidence more than irony. Unless it was ironic that his brother came back from the dead. Then it was irony. Actually, Max's luck, it was irony.  
  
He was waffling, and he knew it.  
  
Rubbing his face hard, he nods, as if Harper could see that, quipping first, "That's a first." He'd never been able to tell what his brother was thinking. Or...well, he could, just not about scientific matters, but then again when it came to the heart (or...other organs) there wasn't much science involved.  
  
"Zoe's." He answered after a beat, brows furrowing. "Ask...Alcott where, she moved." A good four or five years ago now, but no need to remind his brother that. He was still glad he hadn't said to ask Lyndsea instead; he almost did.  
  
"Why, you coming now?"  
  
Max's voice did not quaver when he said that, it did not, did not.  
  
"Yes, it's about as surprising as you sleeping with my wife." That one slipped from him. The sentence took a mind of its own and slithered out if his mouth before he could stop it, striking its target with abrupt and vehement force. His hand came out to rub over his mouth, almost to prevent himself from taking it back. It should sting, and he had every right to be angry.  
  
"No, I'll come by later," he answered after some deliberation. Every nerve in his body was screaming at him to go confront Max right now, but he couldn't. He and his family were going to eat breakfast. A family that should include the man on the other line, but who couldn't and wouldn't. He didn't want Max in his house, because it was still his house, damnit.  
  
So what would he accomplish by going now? Ruining everyone's day, because they'd know where he had gone. The majority at least, and how could he face them after? Harper swallowed again.  
  
"When's your next shift? I'll stop by before, or after, depending."  
  
"Harper-" But Max just cut himself off, shakes his head back and forth, unsurprised his brother's words felt like a smack.  
  
His brother's physical strength had never been noteworthy (and now, well...)--but his words? They bit. And poisoned his ass and left him unable to sit for days. (Wait, that was the poison ivy his brother left in his bed sheets, but whatever). Besides, what could he say? He wasn't sure he didn't want to go see Harper now just so he could get reamed and feel properly punished for once. (But he shouldn't blame Lyndsea, that he definitely wants to say.)  
  
"Tonight." He finally answers, freeing his lips. "It's a double," he decides right then he'd schedule that request asap-Zoe, stop looking at him like that, "-I'll be out of here at five thirty."  
  
What? He almost snapped that back as Max said his name. Fortunately, he didn't finish the sentence and Harper was able to hold himself back.  
  
 Something told him that this shift being a double had just been a very recent decision. Harper chose not to comment on it as he nodded to himself, as if that was helping.  
  
"I'll be there before then." With nothing more to say for now, Harper took the phone away from his ear and hung up before dealing with an awkward goodbye. Placing the phone back on the table, he inhaled through his nose and unclenched his fist before walking towards the dining room. He wished he could say he felt better, but he didn't. It would just have to be out of mind for the moment.  
  
And his brother hung up. Well, maybe that was for the best-a goodbye would just be too final. Even if he was saying he'd be there later, it felt a little like he was being-well, hung out to dry, like he was one of Bianca's fine dresses left to stew on a radiator for a few hours. He hadn't been wrung out yet, that would be later, when his brother got a hold of his neck and twisted him around like a cartoon character being k/o-ed.  
  
'I'll be there later'--that's as much of a time frame his brother gave him. Which meant give or take seven hours he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do.  
  
"Well." Max says false cheerily, finishing the yogurt, "Actually maybe this is good. He gave me time to stock up on first aid- get bandages, Kleenex, ice." He nods his head at Zoe. "And I can hide all breakables in the meantime. Oh, definitely put a cup on-and an animal pen up, in case of impromptu transfiguration-Zoe, do you have dog food? Harper liked being poetic."  
  
Max is silent for a moment, then his cheeks color and how alters to present tense with clear abash, "...Likes."  
  
By the time the conversation was over, Zoe's coffee was lukewarm. She had held the cup up to her mouth in anticipation the whole time but never actually took a sip of it. With pursed lips, she put the cup back down and rested her hands on the kitchen bar, exhaling.  
  
"Oh, Max," she shook her head as she watched him carefully. He was making unfunny jokes to deal with how hurt and guilty he felt, of course he was. His face might have broken her heart more than once during that entire short conversation, actually. He was just so damn expressive.  
  
"He's not going to transfigurae you into an animal, Max, he's already done that." Right, because what Max really needed to hear is that his genius and now murderous older brother was creative enough to come up with something else.  
  
"Is letting him beat you up _really_ going to solve anything? He's not going to feel any better, and neither are you. All you're gonna do is get blood on my bamboo floor."  
  
By the time the conversation was over, Zoe's coffee was lukewarm. She had held the cup up to her mouth in anticipation the whole time but never actually took a sip of it. With pursed lips, she put the cup back down and rested her hands on the kitchen bar, exhaling.  
  
"Oh, Max," she shook her head as she watched him carefully. He was making unfunny jokes to deal with how hurt and guilty he felt, of course he was. His face might have broken her heart more than once during that entire short conversation, actually. He was just so damn expressive.  
  
"He's not going to transfigure you into an animal, Max, he's already done that." Right, because what Max really needed to hear is that his genius and now murderous older brother was creative enough to come up with something else.  
  
"Is letting him beat you up -really- going to solve anything? He's not going to feel any better, and neither are you. All you're gonna do is get blood on my bamboo floor.  
  
"Oh, I don't know." Max says offhand, only half joking, "Knocking me out will probably make him feel more like a man defending his territory -- the trouble being he really...can't, unless I let him, which undoes the whole good deed of making him feel manly."  
  
Max chokes out a laugh, then stands up and shakes his head to himself. To reassure Zoe, he's sure to add quickly, "We'll take it outside though. I mean. It's not like I have a wife he can sleep with to make it even."  
  
Stomping with a little ... extra, pizazz on the trash can, he lets the yogurt fall into it. Remembering too late the silver spoon, he stoops to pick it out. It's not until the metal's clattering in Zoe's sink that Max remembers he was a wizard, could have just summoned it. Great. Smacking the aluminum nozzle to turn it on, he sticks his hands in the sink to wash, continuing to talk aloud.  
  
"Though by all means if you can think of something that *will* make me and him feel better, I'm all ears."  
  
"No you're not, in here I have sound wards and those nosy bitches on 322 have ears everywhere, I swear." You couldn't even piss in peace without them hearing about it. She warmed her coffee up again with a spell and then took a sip, wincing as she burned the tip of her tongue. Too hot.  
  
Max threw out her spoon. Before she could comment on it he realized it too. Another day she would admonish him for eating her yogurt, because really he should know better by now, but today he looked like...an abused puppy in a shelter waiting to be adopted.  
  
I'll adopt you, puppy Max, she thought and then had to hide some small laughter because that would just be very poor taste.  
  
"Forgiveness," she said instead, her voice oddly small, but only for a second. "Nothing else is going to work. If you need to yell at each other to get there, fine, as long as you get to the talking stage. But throwing fists around like a couple of enraged dirty apes isn't going to work. Volunteering for target practice as a punch dummy isn't going to work either, you masochistic puppy."  
  
"I didn't volunteer for target practice," Max protests without any...real point, because everything else Zoe had said was exactly accurate. Most things she said were. Oh, who was he kidding, Zoe was always right, and usually it was one of those annoying traits you forgive because you care about someone and they've always had your back, literally sometimes in the case of Chilean boxers who didn't like the fact their pet monkey "escaped" into his room -- but right now, it wasn't annoying. It was...endearing.  
  
"I just don't see how we're going to get to him forgiving me any time soon considering *I* haven't forgiven me either."  
  
Her eyebrows come up and her lips pursed as she looked at him. She didn't even have to say the word 'really' out loud, it was written all over her face. If they were going to start nit-picking the details here, this would be a longer day than it already looked to be. Max wasn't going to be able to relax until Harper got here, and wouldn't relax after either. The only sleep this one was going to get was after his double shift (the moron), when he passed out from exhaustion.  
  
"So -we're- getting him to forgive you, huh?" She asked with a brief smile after poking his side. Obviously though, it was going to be a joint effort and definitely not only with her help.  
  
"Well, knowing you, you wont be able to start forgiving yourself until he does," she breathed out through her mouth, moving a piece of hair out of the way. She wasn't sure which Brackner was the more stubborn, this was going be work. But she was positive it was going to work out because they're brothers and they love each other.  
  
"Max, you didn't know. There was no way you could have known." She put her cup down to place a hand on his shoulder. "Don't be so hard on yourself." Especially given that Harper was going be a battering ram of harsh on Max soon enough. Maybe that's what he needed. A good enough push for him to defend himself, even just a little. Oh, who was she kidding?  
  
"I mean, I definitely would have shagged Isadora if my brother had died." Unfunny humor, haha?  
  
"Oh no. Go on. Abandon me in my hour of need baby doll, I won't judge, you're right to, absolutely."  
  
He smirks, but only half-heartedly. He'd be lost if Zoe really did go. Though he supposes, he was being accurate when he said he wouldn't judge - how could he? She would be right. Just like Harper kicking his ass was right. So why did this all just feel so...wrong?  
  
As she poked him, he nods in absent accord. He wouldn't. He was contrary like that. Excepting, of course, that he'd forgive himself until a certain phone call. It was easier explaining to a marble slab.  
  
Well...no, it wasn't. He was too overjoyed (prick) that his brother had risen from the dead to not want to ignore that would have ever happened in the first place.  
  
"Not that I'm opposed, per say, to the visual in particular," Max smirks absently, "But no you wouldn't, Zo. Which is the point - I might not have known, that he wasn't dead, but I stood next to them on their wedding day. I knew that. I knew she was grieving. And I still shagged her, that is on me." He pokes himself in the chest, eyes rolling up to the ceiling as he sighs.  
  
"Letting him hit me once seems like the least I can do. I don't know it won't make him feel better. Actually - yeah, do I, know that he's not going to feel better?" Max spins in the chair, letting her hand go, earnest and curious.  
  
"It made me feel better to see Roswell's ass beaten and dead. Harper did that. As he should have." His hand hits the air, "It's been nearly ten years since I've spent any time with my brother, the first thing I gotta tell him is that I slept with his wife? After what he went through? I should be watching what I'm drinking, if that poison of his to make one numb to pain is tasteless it might already be too late."    
  
He rubs over his face, hard.  
  
"You wouldn't last a day without me, frankly, so." She took a final sip of her coffee and left it abandoned in the sink. The magic she used to warm it up had changed the taste, and magic tasted horrible. The caffeine was going to do its work though, hopefully.  
  
She walked over to her pantry to grab a box of cereal and then snatched a banana from her fruit bowl, coming back just in time for Zoe to exhale and try not to roll her eyes in frustration.  
  
"It takes two to tango, loverboy," she picked up the spoon from the sink and then pointed at him with it. "She's a grown ass woman who chose to drop her panties for you, so maybe you should stop carrying all the blame." Actually, they both eventually needed to let the guilt go. It was over and they didn't mean to hurt Harper obviously, it would have never happened if he had been 'alive'. They should all move forward. Zoe lived better without it. There was not one single thing she can remember feeling guilty for. This included jacking her Healer off a few more painkillers than she really needed. No shame. She rinsed off the spoon and grabbed a bowl off the drying rack before placing it in front of her.  
  
"Okay but Gustav was a sadistic psychopath who took everything away from him, and took him away from you, so it's not the same! You're his brother." But hell, like she was going to stop them. Stubborn jackasses (coincidentally the same animal Harper had turned Max into years ago), why did she love the Brackners again?  
  
She ripped open the cereal bag and poured it in, chewing on her bottom lip as she watched him. Shoulders hunched, trying to rub the lines away from his face, Max was hurting.  
  
"He's spent too long surrounded by violence. More of it against his own family is not going to help; it's not what he needs. Let him hit you once, fine, get it out of your system, let him get it out of his, but don't let him abuse you. Likely as not Max, you won't be the person he's angriest with. Just the one person he can unleash the anger at. He's certainly not going to yell at Lyndsea, he's already killed Gustav and however many else fugly cockwads there were. Don't encourage anger, don't turn the other cheek and say something like 'hey man you missed a spot'."  
  
Her hands dropped back to the counter after using air quotes and a deeper voice to prove her point, before retiring back to her normal, not as deep but certainly not high fairy princess either, voice. Summoning her almond milk, she poured some in the bowl and then began to peel and break apart her banana to add it to her cereal.  
  
"It's going to work out, Max. It is." She lifted her head and looked at him squarely in the eye. "He won't be mad at you forever," she tapped the side of her temple with her fingers, "Zoe knows best."  
  
"That does sound like something I would do." Max had to agree, because there rest of what she was saying -- ripping through cereal packages and banana peels like she wanted to rip someone's head off -- it...well, hurt a little close to home. His brother had been lost to violence for ... almost a decade. As someone who spent his life around the dramatic, fucked-up, messes other people made -- saw the hurt in the eyes of his squad when they'd lost a sister on the team, been there to hand her medallion to their family, saw people engulfed in flames, or had insides on their outsides -- or other magical damage: Splinchings, broken bones, the like? Max knew. As Zoe did. And Max knew what they both weren't saying: Violence might be the last thing Harper needed, but it was likely his first recourse. It was all he knew anymore. There was a reason he could kill Gustav without blinking.  
  
People don't get snatched away from their lives, thrown in hell and then turn around and one day wake up fine.  
  
"Never knew how selfish I was, you know." Max said off-hand, going to get off the stool, heels unhooking where he'd still clung to the counter, letting himself lean on folded hands, dig them into the marble countertop.  
  
"You're kidding right?"  
  
Max was by far the most selfless person she knew. Sure, he pulled off the tough guy act astoundingly well, and he led their Rescue Squad with the firm hand it needed, but Max was the kind of man to give you the shirt off his back to practically every woman's joy. He came off as an insensitive prick, and sometimes he could be, but he had always been a good person. Hell, they met when he along with Harper and Sandor beat up and consequently humiliated Gustav one day a Ministry party. She had always been brave, she liked to think, but seeing that gave her the extra valor she needed to stand up for herself. She was only 13 at that time, and it hadn't been the first time that happened, just the first time he'd been stopped.  
  
Did she already mention how fucking elated she was that that bastard was finally dead? Because she really fucking was.  
  
The Brackner brothers helped her that night and expected nothing in return, but only Max had made a living out of it. The types of hell they pulled people out of every shift were enough to drive most people crazy. Oddly enough, Max was better equipped than anyone else in his family right now to help his brother, and he wont be able to until Harper forgave him. Max being the entirely selfless person he was would let Harper put all the blame and anger on him, but that couldn't last long. Harper needed to find a way to let that anger go. It wasn't going to be easy. That family was in for a long healing process. Honestly, they need a therapist but Brackners had no patience for pompous, tight-lipped, assuming pricks with fancy degrees to hide the fact they didn't know shit. That particular line was a Lyndsea Brackner special after she had taken Alcott to one after Harpers supposed death. So in times like these, Zoe stepped up to be the cocky, loose-mouthed, very assuming cunt with a not so fancy degree that hid the fact she actually knew her shit. To think her psychology minor had first started as a sod off to her mother.  
  
Looking back at Zoe as her hand disappeared, he smirks and adds, "Might have been kinder to let him stay dead than all they did to him, and now what I've done to him -- and yeah, Lyndsea too, I just -- I don't *want* him to be mad at her, Steel, between this transition and adjusting to Alcott already? We know what it's going to be like better than most."  
  
Which was why it sucked ass that his brother wouldn't want to listen to him; which is why Zoe was right when she said he shouldn't just stand there and take it. Insomnia, prone to anxiety attacks, lashing out with fists or words, mood swings, depression, inability to remember, pushing ones self too hard -- there were more symptoms. His brother might have all or none of them (likely closer to 'all'). He didn't know. All he was going to know now was that he wanted to kick his ass, and as much as he'd been joking before? Harper would want to prove he could protect his family-like he hadn't already done that killing Roswell-he'd want to prove he was still a man. Max ... wants him to. He wants his brother to feel like his old self even adjusting; he wants the brother he knew to be in there still, genius, vanity, and pain in the ass and all. He wants him back.  
  
"Might have, been kinder," He echoes himself looking at Zoe, and  then shrugs, shaking his head, "But I'm so fucking glad he's alive I actually prefer he went through all that than the idea he was gone forever. That is...that is messed -up.-"  
  
"You know you don't mean that", she spoke quietly, a brief sad smile on her face. Shitty situation or not, Zoe knew that Max was forever grateful that his older brother had a chance to even be angry with him. He thought he had lost Harper, hell they all did, and now they got him back. Everything else was a detail. They could be very complicated details, but the most important thing was that the Brackner family was whole again. The missing puzzle piece was back. Lyndsea had the love of her life back, her partner in everything, and Alcott will get to know his father, and Benjamin and Elena were returned their son and the tres hermanos were together again! Together, and still separate. If she weren't heavily knackered with painkillers she would feel that stinging pain as a sharp stab. Instead it was more of a dull throbbing as she saw her best friend hurt over what to do.  
  
Max was right, this was fucked up.  
  
His hand strikes at the marble, swallowing a laugh as he shakes his head to himself still. When he looks back up at Zoe, he's smiling genuinely now, rubbing tired eyes with the hand he just beat against marble and wood and - did he cut himself with aluminum foil? (Okay if he did we're just never going to mention that, yes.)  
  
"Thanks, by the way. Letting me stay here. Listening to me ramble and -- not asking, last night, that too. Just, thanks.  
  
You're right when you say I'd be absolutely lost without you, Zo. I...really don't know what I'd have done, if I had."  
  
Sincerity gave his voice an odd steadiness, not present before. He goes around the counter, leans to kiss her cheek. Then he smirks.  
  
"Now -- I'm going to go catch up on sleep really fast, before he gets here. No idea when he's coming, and with the shift after...yeah."  
  
He pecks another kiss on her other cheek before darting away up the curly-Q staircase to the extra-room he'd commandeered.  
  
Her smile returned as he thanked her, and she shook her head quickly, batting that away with a wave of her hand.  
  
"Don't mention it, you can stay here as long as you like, but later were going to set some ground rules, especially about my yogurt. It was mostly a joke, because who cared about a bloody cup of yogurt right about now? He could eat every single thing in her fridge if it was going to make him feel better but thankfully Max didn't eat his feelings. Or rather, make that unthankfully, because he drank and boxed his feelings away. Fucking Brackners. That train of thought turned out to be more endearing than annoying as Max pecked her cheek once. And then again, when could he ever help himself?  
  
Hm, good thing she kept that comment to herself-, actually. This is why it served to have a filter. She watched him walk back up to the bedrooms with the spoon of cereal in her mouth before looking around and expecting her place. Max was right, the breakables needed to be temporarily moved. It was gonna get Cain-and-Abel up in this bitch.  
  
(She could hear Bianca now, all attitude and Spanish suaveness as she would say girl, no, never say that again.)  
  



	6. Made An Appointment

Harper had been able to spend the majority of the day not thinking about the fact that he practically made an appointment to go and kick the shit out of his little brother. More metaphorical than literal, so he was repeating to himself like a mantra over and over in his head, he nevertheless couldnt deny that he would have to control a growing urge to do more of the latter. Anger could be more easily forgotten in the presence of family, especially his wife and son, but now as he walked up the steps to the building Zoe lived in now, it was returning. Alcott had given him the directions, and it was no secret to him or Lyndsi what he was going for. Neither of them had offered to come along when he said he was going to head to Zoes for a few, and for that Harper was silently thankful, yet the anxiety of having to leave them, leave the house in general, was only added to the growing monster in his chest.  
  
He walked up the steps and knocked on the door to the right. Zoe lived in a townhouse now, having moved out of her old apartment about five years ago according to Alcott. Before she, or Max, answered, a woman from a shop next door greeted him with a good afternoon, which he promptly returned with a small smile. It didnt reach his eyes but thankfully they were covered by the pair of sunglasses Eliza had gotten him. She had bought it the same time he did the sweater she gave him for when they get out, anticipating the trouble that daylight was going to be for weeks. It wasn't only trouble, it was painful, or at least it would be if he didnt know how to block that out. He would have to get new glasses soon, he expected.  
  
The door opened revealing Zoe who was still a little bruised from her accident, smiling at him as if she were none the wiser about the situation. Or rather, she smiled because she was all too familiar with the situation.  
  
Hey, Harper, come in, its freezing out there! She held the door open for him as he passed through with a thank you. The entryway was small as it only accommodated a place to put your coats and the stairs. Her loft was actually a floor or two up, above the neighbors. Zoe closed the door behind him and then gestured up the stairs.  
  
"How are you getting on so far?"  
  
Harper smiled and then responded as he was meant to, "So far so good."  
  
Zoe smiled, it was a knowing smile this time too, but she didnt comment on it. 

"I know, its a weird layout, but its so me. See the neighbors are literally next to this wall," she knocked twice at the base of the stairs and then heard a knock back as they walked up. Harper smiled briefly, taking up his sunglasses and putting them in his pocket as he adjusted to the internal light again.  
  
"They've got two stories and I've got the loft which is also two stories, technically. The bedrooms used to be the attic before it was remodeled years ago, but I do share a wall with these two nosy bitches. It wouldn't surprise me if they had stethoscopes for their daily snooping and they hate me because they cant get anything from me. Usually, but sometimes something will happen like one of my exes showed up while I was working my shift and declared her undying love for me after her sex change. Spoiler alert: the love died, but my neighbors thought I was a lesbian for months but then one night I made too much getting home drunk with a couple of friends, I let them kip for a night, so then they thought I was bisexual, but Bianca and Max come over all the time, sometimes Magnus and my friend Jessica too so the general consensus is that Im a major slut. Because obviously, I cant have any friends without wanting to shag their brains out, of course not, I'm just an unevolved animal driven on primal instinct."  
  
Harper smirked briefly, amazed he could still follow all of that in the short amount of time it took to climb the stairs up to her loft. There was another door at the top of the stairs too, and Harper wondered if it was a spell that allowed her listen to a knock all the way from up there. The building wasnt exactly structured for the sound to carry a couple of flight of stairs.  
  
"So you still ramble when youre nervous, huh?" He asked, feeling his stomach start to twist up again as she opened the door and walked through it.  
  
No idea what you're talking about.  
  
Right, of course not. His eyebrows lifted for a moment but he didnt push further. As he walked in, Max was walking down another step of stairs that spiraled up into what he supposed where the renovated attic bedrooms Zoe had mentioned. His jaw clenched almost immediately, making him swallow a sudden lump in his throat.  
  
Feeling the tension rising, Zoe shuffled behind him and then took a couple of steps. To Harpers surprise, the steps went backwards, not forward. He had half expected Zoe would demand to stay, it was her home after all, no one could kick her out of her own home, but she was leaving willingly. Or maybe not so willingly, maybe she had needed to be talked into leaving when he showed up.  
  
"I was just heading out, I've got a few errands to run, by which of course I mean movies to rent and ice cream to buy, given that I'm supposed to skip this shift to rest. It was clear by Zoe's tone that she hadnt intended on doing so until right, nor was she happy to be missing out on work for her recovery. It was also clear that it was all clearly an excuse to get out of the way. A _'please don't kill him'_ would have been a little more subtle. Harped looked over his shoulder in time to catch Zoe looking at Max, no doubt to show her support. Right, because Max was a victim in this? Piss that.  
  
Harper turned back to look at Max as Zoe closed the door behind her and started descending the staircase. His heart hammered in his chest, his hands were clenched into fists in the pockets of his coat, and his jaw was still clenched hard. Suppressing his magic took every bit of concentration he had. It rolled off him in waves, making the air around him crackle with static electricity.  
  
"You know, I kept deliberating what I was going to do first when I actually got here. Punch you in the nose, or maybe hex your prick off. I contemplated whether I should even let you try to explain, or just yell at you right from the start, but right now? You're just making me sick." He exhaled, and it didnt come out steady enough for Harpers liking, so he immediately spoke again.

"While I do appreciate karmic justice as much as the next guy, I do implore you with my preference for the former. I've never been one for poetry." Max cut himself off from the next word "for poetry, brother" as it seemed unlikely that reminding Harper of their relation was going to do anything but make him angrier. Actually, in the last nine or so hours, it had become somewhat of a comfort to realize he'd already committed the most atrocious act against his brother he could. What could he say that was worse than sleeping with his wife?

Max stopped trying to plan too: something that came of a relief to the stuffed animal mouse Zoe had won him at the fairgrounds last year. Harper had to set the tone. Nothing he said would make a difference. At least he hoped not. He hoped Harper was brutal. He hoped he his brother tore into him without abash. Anything else and he'd have to worry two things: that there was more later to come, and that his brother wouldn't stand up for himself.  
  
Eyes instinctively following Zoe through the door, Max realized belatedly after he'd spoken he'd looked to the door again. Like it would help him. They were weary, exhaustion had barely claimed him to nap longer than two hours. The double shift was likely (hopefully) to be spent most in the squad room's cot. Honestly, he'd sleep better once Harper let him have it. The wait of purgatory was worse. No one quibbles that.

  
"How could you do this to me?"  
  
Turning back, Max rubbed over his face to -- do something, clear his eyes maybe (yes that makes sense), like it would clear his mind. Swallowing, he barely gets out, "Look, Harper--" before his brother cut him off, asking how he could do this to him. How?  
  
There was that joke. Well when two people couple it generally involves a bed (though they never had used the kingsize gilded bed that went back generations of Brackners Harper would be sleeping in now), a bottle of wine (actually scotch usually, Lynds downed it like she'd been born on a Kentucky dust back-alley), and a lack of clothes (as if she'd ever taken everything off. Except her wedding ring. That always was off. And then right back on.) Max doesn't say this. Thankfully, he has that sense at least.  
  
Quietly, instead he offers, "Yeah, well, that's fair. I make myself pretty sick."  
  
"I wasn't trying to do anything -to- you, Harper. I'm sorry. I know that. As you have no doubt a thousand times by now, so much so that it probably just sounds like an insult now, like I should have expected it because it's you-- I didn't know you were coming back. I don't know what hearing me say that is going to help you though. "   
  
He eyes the hammering fists stuffed in Harper's pocket and cocks an eyebrow-then points at them.   
  
"Will hitting me? I won't interfere, big brother, let me have it." Max's hands drop to his side, palms open, pretending he was screwing up his lip because he was steeling his jaw-not because it was trembling, because it wasn't, he wasn't, and he wasn't shaky either. Haven't you heard mirrors lie?  
  
There was always a smart comment to be had when Max decided to open his fucking mouth. He didn't bother replying back to it. He wasn't here for jokes, or for teasing, or to exchange witty one-liners or anything of the sort. Harper was here because he was angry, furious, hurt, and someone had to fucking answer for it damnit!  
  
Max was right about one thing though, there was nothing he could possibly say to make him Harper feel better, or help in anyway. So what was he here for, to kick his ass? Max seemed to think so, and encouraged it. Of course he would, his brainless oaf of a brother, resolving things with fists. Of course he wouldn't interfere, because otherwise how could Harper hope to hurt him right? Otherwise, how could he get a punch in if Max didn't let him? Max was the stronger one, the physical one, the man-of-the-house persona. In contrast, Harper at the moment looked like a bleeding drug addict, down to the scars that could pass for track marks. Who could he possibly injure looking like that?  
  
Well one look in The Paper could answer that fucking question.  
  
Teeth gritted, he found himself closing the distance between them, his hands coming out of his pockets and his right fist pulling back before he aimed a hook to Max's left cheek. His fist made contact, bone white knuckles ugly and protruding moved his brother's head to the side, but Max barely took a step back. A punch similar to that one had knocked Gustav off his feet, but his brother barely moved. Fury revolved in his stomach and his nostrils flared as he aimed a second punch and then a third, his chest rising and falling quickly as he breathed in short bursts. And even still, nothing. Angry tears prickled at his eyes until he finally just pushed Max back and away, the fact that his brother stumbled back was a clue he'd  had some help.  
  
Turning away from Max, he passed his hands over his face, his knuckles red as he paced away. With an accusing finger, he turned on the spot, his voice rising sharp and loud.  
  
"How could you do this to me!," he repeated, no longer a question but instead a heated accusation.  
  
"You lived in my house, slept with my wife, raised my son, you stole my life! It was mine, and you were living it! You lived it while I was chained, and whipped, and beaten, and flayed! You could have had anyone, anyone at all! I would have -never- done that to you! I would have never betrayed you like this! You're supposed to be my brother! Do I mean so little to you, you blundering piece of shit?!"  
  
He huffed, his jaw trembling now as it remained unclenched, his hands following suit and shaking. His gut wrenched as his entire body protested; it would have groaned in agony if it could. But now he wasn't groaning, he wasn't crying though his eyes were red now and glassy, he was just yelling.  
  
"Four years! Four -fucking- years! It's not like it was a one time thing, you carried on for four years! You've never even had a girlfriend last for more than two months! What, you got tired of chasing tail? Of being with a different woman every night?!  
  
What is wrong with you?!"  
  
For a hot moment, Max was afraid for his life. Then the first punch hit and he realized, Harper would have had to draw his wand to take that from him. Blood drips from his lip, a black eye was certain to raise and he had the wind knocked...into his throat, not quite out of him. Honestly, for a hot moment after that, Max was worried he was hurting his brother more letting the fists land (okay the uppercut he didn't see coming) -- and he rolls back on his heels when shoved, eager to get away.  
  
Max smears his hand with scarlet from his mouth before he swallows it, rubs a pink gum and shakes his head. When his brother starts to yell, he looks up, expecting he wouldn't respond. Except...  
Well, that--no, he hadn't --  
  
"Oi -" Max holds a hand up, voice harsh and heavy, cuts off then starts, "Hold on", cuts off then starts, "Un momento--" cuts off, starts, "Oh-", then finally, "No."  
  
That was firm, surprising even Max.  
  
"No, Harper. That's too far. Yes, okay, I slept with Lyndsea, and yes it was -- a, decent length of time," those words run together on a quiet inhale, "--that I'm sorry for, that I wish to God I could take back, but I'm not the asshole that stole your life. You killed him, and I only wish we could have chucked his corpse in a ditch and lit it on fire. But that was him, not me, don't put that on me. I didn't know -- none of us knew, you were alive, okay, and Lyndsea? She shut herself up more than I ever knew possible--that ice queen persona? She froze. And when it started to thaw, she was drowning, she didn't want to live without you. And knew she had to, for Al, but there was only so much she could do considering --he had post traumatic stress. He -bit- a therapist, and she just was proud of him for it. Well, okay, Sandor and I were too, a little bit, but --"  
  
Max cuts off again: he ran out of breath. And forgot he hadn't wanted to interrupt his brother. Except...well, speaking of post traumatic stress.  
  
"But that wasn't going to help anything in the long term. I won't deny they were there for each other, and they were good, but seriously Harper--you've probably got the stats on what happens to the families left behind memorized, don't you? Mom pitched in. Dad. Lyndsea's mom. Sandor kept his family in the country for a month. But I was the logical--I'm not, going to apologize for being there to help take care of them. It wasn't, about stealing your life brother, I wanted to make sure they were looked after, -Your- family, cared for, because that's who they are and always have been!"   
  
If anything before hadn't moved him to tears before, even the briefest mention of what Lyndsi and Alcott went through was enough to get him there. He took his bottom lip into his mouth and had to turn away and cover it with his hand. Imagining it was one thing, having an idea was one thing, but having it confirmed with details, even details as small as that was an entirely different thing.  
  
"Taking care!-," the repeated phrase left his mouth as an exclamation as his hand came down and slapped his thigh. He gritted his teeth together as he attempted to cut the flow of water to his eyes, as if that were feasibly possibly. His head shook back and forth, his whole body rejecting the entire notion.  
  
"Right, so," he began turning back, "mom cooked them meals and made sure they ate and Sandor stayed so that Alcott could have his cousins with him, and oh yeah, you fucked Lyndsi to satisfy her physical needs! Family effort! That's brilliant!" He even managed a laugh, though it was bitter and ripped through his throat as if it was coated with a million of little spikes. If it had physical form, that laugh would have been a spore. A black and green spore.  
  
"You could have managed to take care of them without having tried to replace me! You had no right! They're my family, not yours! It was supposed to have been me!" He gasped out the last as he ran out of breath, hitting his chest with his pointer finger. Tears escaped him again.  
  
"You know more about my own son than I do, fuck, he even looks more like you! And you've been with them all this time! I was supposed to be there! I was supposed to have all those memories! I was supposed to take care of them! Not you! Not like that! You moved into my house, that is -my- house! Don't say that you were the logical choice, don't say that there was no one else or no other way, that's a fucking lie! Don't lie to me, don't lie to me!" He breathed heavily, inhaling in and exhaling out quickly, his voice rapidly becoming more and more hoarse.  
  
All the air seemed to go out of Max in an instant as his face fell and tears pricked at his eyes. In a strange way, it appeared his brother, despite his injuries, despite his years of torture (being chained, whipped, and beaten and flayed--it echoes in his head, harsh, a ringing funeral bell) -- he'd knocked him out after all. Harper seemed to say Max's initial point. Max felt like he'd had a two by four smack him in the face. 

"Harper--" He tries quietly, turning away himself and rubs at both eyes, even with the bloodied hand because dammit it was going to be red anyways. And glassy, puffed--he'd have to take care of it before his shift.  
  
It occurs to him he didn't know if Lyndsea told Harper he'd moved in, as he assumed. The way Harper spoke now, his big brother seemed to have known for years. Stomach twisting as he flinches, Max looks back, hand hitting his own chest, rubbing over a sore spot. It strikes his hidden dogtag necklace. The metal cuts his skin as if a wound.  
  
"It should have been you." Max's voice is hoarse now too. "I wanted it to be you. God knows they did. I grew up in that house too, and it -still- never stopped being yours. Since Ma and Papi gave it to you and her on your wedding day. It always should have been you-you think I don't know that?!"   
  
He spins, going to Zoe's couch, bending over the back and pushing into the leather-plush-whatever. Max finally mutters out quietly,  
  
"I'm not lying. If I was lying-if there was any hidden meaning, why wouldn't I have lied about this? I won't lie. You think I didn't spend every day wishing you were there instead, that they didn't?! Every day, Harper! And I am your brother--I just--I've always been a fuck up, you know that. You know everything."  
  
Harper spent a long time looking at the floor of the loft apartment, his hands at his waist, just staring. He couldn't look anywhere else, and couldn't trust himself to pace for fear of blowing a hole through Zoe's wall and letting her imposing neighbors had front seats to the spectacle. He didn't want to destroy Zoe's home for Merlin's sake, he just wanted to stop feeling so angry. Harper didn't know how to stop. Killing Gustav hadn't helped, punching and yelling at Max wasn't helping either, there was just this ball of fury in his chest that couldn't be smothered or drowned. The second he was alone, the second he even had a second to think about it, he was right back to anger.  
  
As Max called himself a fuck up, Harper was inclined to agree, but he didn't say a word. He kept silent because out of all the things he had yelled at Max, agreeing with that one would eventually prove to be the only one he would take back. He didn't want to take anything back, he didn't want to be guilty, he had every fucking right to be angry! So maybe he did want to be angry. Maybe he had spent so much time turning the other cheek and not lifting so much as a finger to defend himself to keep quiet now. And he wouldn't. Too long, it had been too long since anything he said counted, since he had any say in anything. He mattered! He fucking mattered, and his feelings mattered and he wasn't going to swallow his hurt and forget his anger just because it was making his brother feel bad. Fuck that. And good, he should feel bad.  
  
"Maybe," he finally said without shouting since his first sentence coming in here. Harper sniffed and crossed his arms now.  
  
"I know most things, I even guessed about you two before Lyndsi even told me. I've never despised being right more in my life." He lifts his head as his eyes narrowed before he continued.  
  
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. I don't know how I'm supposed to get over this. I don't know how I'm supposed to forgive you!" His hands ended up smacking his thighs as he couldn't keep them crossed in front of his chest for long.  
  
"I can't even look at you."  
  
"There'a no us-two," Max objected, swear 'fuck" under his breath and rubbing both hands over his face fast--fast enough to remind himself his eye was swollen and his lip was bleeding. It was the first time Harper had successfully laid a punch on him -- since he was teaching him, Max thinks dimly, almost twenty years ago. Harper taught him how to build a Molotov cocktail, how to bullshit teachers on essays, what Potion to use when. He taught his genius older bro to throw a punch. Now he'd hit him! See, -this- was ironic. He'd taught him how to throw a punch and -- well, helped him pluck the courage to ask Lyndsea out in the first place. Max had met her first. He was surprised that didn't come up now but then remembered, he wanted to delegitimize any notion his brother had of them having a 'relationship.' Beyond sibling in law, general hook-ups they both regretted eventually, and the one who spent nine and a half years trying to make her feel like she was afloat - wait. That last wasn't helping.  
  
His fingers unclench around the couch, he moves around it, collapses and puts a pillow over his lap, like a shield. (Max hasn't forgotten his brother's first threat.)  
"I couldn't have replaced you if I wanted to, Harper." Max says dully, eyes fixed on his brother's face. "Lyndsea never stopped loving you. I knew it. She knew it. I mean fuck--I never even kissed her." As if that mattered much, but he sung under his breath, 'I'm not that kind of whore.'  
Max's hand cleans his face again and he hides the need to bite a swollen tongue, fetch ice.  
  
"Look. Stop trying. Yes, of course I'd love it if you could forgive me, but you don't, and I get that. I'd be concerned if you could. But don't-don't say I was replacing you, because I could never measure up. I'd be worthless, which I damn near am, if all I was - was some second-rate fill-in for the lead-roll because you got... ..taken. I don't know what to call it anymore, because it's not even the worst thing to me. The worst thing is I was glad to see you. You survived hell, and I watched them put you in the ground, and I was lost. Of course I was glad. And knowing you can't look at me, when I was glad even for a second, even from a minute inch of a moment, when you walked through Zo's door right now?" Max threw his hands in the air, then hit his lap, scoffed. He even managed a tiny laugh.  
"I mean fuck, bro, you don't have to hit me to punch me. Trust me on that at least."  
  
"Don't-," he began, raising a finger to indicate he should shut up and then shook his head with a frown. He didn't want details, he didn't want to know about what he did or didn't kiss, frankly, he wished he could wipe every single thought about it off his mind. He was done with memory charms though, he was done with them for a very long time.  
  
The truth was that Harper couldn't measure up either, not to the person he had been before. He had spent half of his marriage away from his wife, missed nearly 2/3rds of Alcott's life, Max had spent more time with them both than Harper had, and he had come back lacking. Max had been caring for them, as he so defended himself stating so (prick couldn't even shut up and take it for a minute to even have the slightest idea of what Harper went through), but Harper had to be taken care of instead. He was half blind, with over 65% of scar tissue instead of skin, and he was fully fucked up. Harper was a burden, he had come back to burden his family. The excitement would wear off for them and the disillusionment would come and soon enough they would realize they were better off without him after all. That scared Harper more than anything else.   
  
He wiped at his eyes again, disbelief peppering his breathing with sniffs and sudden exhales. Max admitting that even in the midst of all this he managed to find a way to be happy he was even here to yell at him? Max was crazy. Harper was crazy. His eyes had been opened too wide for him to be anything but crazy anymore, there was no coming back from that.  
  
"Good," he snapped indignantly, "you deserve it. You deserve worse. Because in all these years, everything I've endured, no one has hurt me worse." He set his jaw again and only breathed in through his nose.  
  
"You stay away from me, you stay away from my family, if you so much as come near my house again-" he cut off from lack of an appropriate threat. Nothing worked, nothing came to mind, and he couldn't finish his sentence.  
  
Max nodded. He made a point of doing that, of looking his brother in the eye when he was pointed at, ordered to stop like a dog, if just to confirm for his brother that he didn't need to sharpen his tone that much to be listened to. Anymore, Max thinks to himself, heart clenching something awful in his chest.  
  
Slipping the pillow down his legs and bracing himself on his knees, his hands take his neck as he waits. And waits. Harper was warring with himself (the awful metal thing squeezed his heart again, so he squeezes his neck for symmetry), but he wasn't speaking. The scars obscuring his accusatory eyes and quavering mouth made his brother's anger terrible to see unleashed. Afraid abruptly, now Max wasn't thinking of himself. (Had to happen once in a while, all right?) How would the world accept Harper like this, how could his brother stand it?  
  
When Harper spoke, guilt swarms in his eyes and throat. Tears choke his nose. Max knew he was speaking to wound, to lash out, tried not to take it to heart--but he couldn't help it. His brother hadn't been able to speak his mind in a decade. Max won't do him further insult and pretend Harper doesn't mean what he says.  
  
He won't bring up that it was Lyndsea and Alcott's call as much as Harper's either. That Harper didn't have to see him, but he couldn't keep his nephew from calling him. Alcott probably wouldn't, anyway. Half the time he was there Alcott hated him for the same reason his father does now. The other half of the time he...well, ran to hug him every time he'd come home, threw the Quaffle with him -- but Max doesn't have the right to miss that, his brother was right, those should be his memories.  
  
(Lyndsea won't call because it would be to remind herself of guilt and dependency, two things she abhors. Max knew her...well.)  
  
So instead he just screws his lips up, wincing mildly at the cut in the corner of it and says in a small voice, finishing Harper's sentence, "I won't. It's why I took my stuff out last night."   
  
It was why he hadn't tried to make plans with him too, as Sandor no doubt had. It was why they didn't have a date set to go to the gym, or drink and play cards like they used to, or go to some art film he wouldn't get but they both could make fun of.  
  
"I'm sorry." Max adds. If Harper way never going to speak to him again, well, at least he wasn't in the ground (or under it, tormented alive) anymore. And he wants his brother to remember him saying that. "I really am, sorry. I wish I could show you how much better, than staying away, but if that's what you need--that's what I'll do, because...I really am, Harper."  
  
It had only been a matter of time before the apology arrived to the conversation, if he could even call it a conversation. A conversation involved the constant process of receiving feedback and sending it out, at times simultaneously. All Harper was doing was yelling, yelling until his throat burned with the effort. He was barely processing anything Max was saying because he didn't want to. It was a vain, impetuous decision on his part, to simply ignore him because Harper didn't care, didn't want to care about anything but his own hardship right now. Hadn't he earned that? Hadn't he deserved that at least? Could he not for one fucking second think of himself and not worry about anyone else?!  
  
He brought a shaky hand up to his eyes to wipe them abruptly with a single movement. He sniffed again as the apology hit him again, making it difficult to breathe. What was an apology? It was just words, what good were words going to do him now? Just words. Anyway else, Harper couldn't manage it right now. He wasn't ready to forgive Max, wasn't ready to let him try, and Harper definitely wasn't ready to watch his brother prove he was the better man.  
  
"I have nothing more to say to you." Harper wrenched himself backwards, turning around and headed for the door, slamming it behind him. He wasn't surprised to see Zoe at the bottom of the stairs lacking any bags. She tried to stop him with a whisper of his name but he moved around her exited the building.  
  
Then he kept walking. Walked until his heartbeat had calmed down, until his breathing evened, until his eyes cleared, and then he went home.


	7. Hippogriff Therapy

Alcott had been fiddling around the last quarter hour with his late assignment the assignment she'd negotiated on his behalf as counting for extra credit considering his lamentable attendance record and grades for the last month ("Like I didn't have something else on my mind, Ma? Besides--I got all Christmas break for this."), until Lyndsi decidedly snatched the Snitch he was playing with out of the air and told him to actually get started. Then she endured the brief, pejorative remarks on how he thought she'd played Keeper, not Seeker, and waved her hand through them (as if to say: and your point is?). And then she'd left the library Al was working in after pocketing the desperate Snitch (zipping it up), and heading straight down the hall, out the living room back porch, down the marble steps and into the breach, as it were.

She'd seen Harper outside.

It might have been nine and a half years, but Lyndsi would have had to suffer a concussion to not remember he went to tend to the hippogriff herd when he was upset. Especially as she already had presumed he would want to be outside as much as physically able. The herd had evolved since he was gone the struggling foal Tawny he once lost sleep over now nursing a chestnut foal of her own, but Lyndsi was comforted by the sight of them when she arrived. The proud creatures were ones she always felt a kinship with; Tawny's keen blue eyes even seem to be asking her, _'Young lady, where is your jacket in this snow?'_

She flecks a few dustings off her shoulder, checks her pocket is still zipped, and then clears her throat. Her hair she tucks back nervous, screwing her gaze up against the sunlight's reflection on the snow.

Honestly, it pains her not to know what to say. So she asks quietly instead, "Beginning construction on the igloo? ...Eliza mentioned last night. Asked how I felt about living in one. I told her--You know, I'd heard you'd be surprised how warm they actually are."

Harper remembered the first time he had met the hippogriffs. He had been four years old and on his father's shoulders. His mother had stayed inside with his brothers, lips pursed in that disapproving way of her that Harper now knew (he didn't back then) hid the fact she wished she could be outside then too. Elena grew up on a horse ranch in Spain, his father had explained to him, and raced them professionally for years. But I've told her, Benjamin continued, his father's voice resounding in his head, hippogriffs are not horses. Hippogriffs are fiercely proud creatures, prouder than any stallion before it broke. A hippogriff didn't break, they weren't tamed by humans, not completely, and you couldn't own them. Hippogriffs expect respect because they know they deserve respect. And there was no greater crime than disrespect to a hippogriff.

Bowing your head, Benjamin continued to explain to a Harper that was wide-eyed and memorizing, therefore isn't a sign of submission, it's a sign of respect. Brackners only bow to their equals (because they had no superiors were the unspoken words there).

Harper now bowed his head, maintaining eye contact and waited for Benvolio to bow his own head. Harper approached when he did, passing a hand over his beak. When Harper had first visited the herd with Alcott after breakfast, Benvolio remained sitting by his spot in the shade. The others, those who knew him, had stepped forward (in particular Tawny, who had a foal all her own). Alcott explained that 'Benny' barely moved anymore, proving he shared more with gramps than a nickname. Harper had laughed, and didn't say anything else.

Now he returned back to old Benny, the eldest of the herd. Benny had a grey plumage, orange eyes, and talons as wide as Harper's head. He'd been there since Harper was a teenager, always getting in between warring hippogriffs and breaking up fights.

"Getting old, buddy," Harper remarked, patting his beak still before running his hand up and down his neck, careful not to ruffle the feathers.

"Me too."

Hippogriffs are loyal and fiercely protective of those who have earned their trust. Harper learned that the first day too. His father was a lot more learned than he let on. Harper had once asked him about it, only a few weeks before he had been taken, why he let people believe he was a loud-mouthed idiot. Benjamin had only laughed and said he was definitely loud-mouthed but he had always wanted to be an idiot. Idiots are eternally happy, as long as they remain idiots. I pretend I'm eternally happy and if I pretend long enough, I'm going to believe it.

Benjamin Brackner had always been too smart to be an idiot though, and his family knew better. Everybody else's opinion didn't matter to Benjamin and he didn't lose sleep over it. It may be that Harper still had some things to learn from his father after all.

Your great, great, grandfather didn't buy these hippogriffs, Benjamin also revealed that day to continue with his previous statement. He earned their trust, cared for them, treated them well, showed them kindness. They came ocassionally, and then more often, and eventually, they never left. Stables were built for their comfort but the gates are never locked. The day we have to lock something up to keep it is the day we lost it forever. Brackners have not always known that but they do now. Never forget that son.

Thirty five years later and Harper still hadn't forgotten. He kept every single word that he had heard memorized, recited it in his own head, and it had been years before Harper could really appreciate what he had learned.

Harper turned instinctively and wasn't surprised to see Lyndsi approach. He smiled, stepping away from Benny and chuckling at her question. It took him several more seconds than he was willing to admit to recall what she was referring to but his mind was half away from him.

"Ice doesn't conduct heat very well, so all the warmth generated inside the igloo stays inside." But it was normal to be wary of a structure made entirely out of ice to keep you warm and comfortable. It just went to show up, sometimes the cold kept cold away.

"I told Eliza I was going to build an igloo so I could live outside." He smiled before he joked. "Still not entirely positive I won't."

"I'd be game," Lyndsi said as she shies herself sideways away from the stable door. Even as Harper approached her, made a move away from Benvolio - she keeps a wary eye on him. That one she swore had judged her; there was some kind of ... knowing in his eyes when she would visit. Maybe some part of Harper had told his favorite. (Actually, yeah, maybe Alcott had told the steed when he was upset. He came out here for the same reason his father did.)

Her smile flicks up, shy, half-teasing, "Page eight of the paper says it's where I was born anyways."

She stalls a few inches from Harper her slow walk towards him. It was odd to think she wasn't sure he wants her that close to him. Better to let him approach her; otherwise, her husband would be liable to pull away from her. Lyndsi isn't sure she can handle that.

She definitely isn't sure how it is Harper is standing right now. Wasn't he exhausted? She was, and she'd managed to sleep. As far as she was aware, Harper had been up all night looking at her: once they finally stopped talking and cuddling, when she'd rolled over, he stayed in one spot and she swore she woke up to the same image. Her bottom lipped pulled into her mouth, she breathes out.

"Though I would say it's a waste of our big antique bed. Especially with Alcott in there with us. Wolves special hearing, and all."

Lyndsi winks.

"...How are you not completely exhausted, by the way?" She asks, hoping it was casual (she didn't want to ask, even if she wanted to know, what he'd said to Max). "I mean - did you sleep?"

"Not for the first time they're wrong, obviously. You were born in sunlight. Ice is just....a kingdom your empire conquered." His analogy amused him. Harper once heard the mark of a bad comedian was laughing at your own jokes. Harper had disagree and said it might be a form of narcissism, sure, but the only thing that made a comedian bad was if they were unfunny. And then he had made it clear that terms such as 'bad' and 'unfunny' were problematic to begin because the entire experience was subjective from one person to the next.

What was funny about ~~that~~ was that he had expressed all of that while he was drunk. That was him loosened up. Admittedly, he had been a teenager. He didn't think he had even met Lyndsi by then. And yet somehow Harper had managed to regress back into a personality that was even more awkward than a 15 year old him.

Like a magnetic pull, he gravitated towards Lyndsi again, his steps slow but steady and completely subconscious. He reached her, reached for a hand, and laughed once at her comment, licking his lips as he averted his gaze briefly. In no time he was looking back up though.

"I barely slept back then, and I sleep even less now," he admitted with a small smile, because saying it without a smile would have been too difficult. Truth was that he had been ongoingly exhausted for years now.

"The shock is still here, everything is slowly sinking in again. My sleeping will begin to normalize soon as my body learns it doesn't need to stay alert, as it sets a dependable schedule for itself again." It was easy to speak facts, hadn't he just proven that already? But Harper needed to stop doing what was easy to him; he needed to push himself.

"And I did a lot of thinking. That's always guaranteed to keep me awake." Plus the promise of nightmares, or elapses in subconscious violent behavior while he slept. Sleeping was stressful.

Taking his hand instinctively as he drew her in, Lyndsi found herself giggling over his metaphor. There seemed nothing else to do. He calls her light, love, tells her she embodies the sun. Yet for years, years he hadn't known her, she knew if her war was between that and igloos, it was only Harper's return that makes her ice melt. So how was he not the sunlight himself?

Rubbing the back of her hand over her lips, she leans backwards against a stable stall, the wood digging under her shoulder blade to prop her up as she searches his gaze. Despite what he was saying, his eyes don't seem to believe it. The contradiction made physical, she thinks. He knew he wouldn't relax until he believes he can and yet he doesn't seem to even believe what he's saying. That was the trouble sometimes with a genius brain. Knowing things you can't actually conquer. She'd add him to her kingdom if she had to drag him in, but he was taking her hand willing and eager as a lost little boy.

"I suppose that makes sense."

Lyndsi's throat was dry as she nods, absent.

"What were you thinking about?"

Humiliating and potentially emotionally crippling ways to get back at Max he almost half-joked. He didn't say it aloud because it was still only half a joke, and not that funny. He had already purposefully lashed out at one family member today and he thought that was more than enough for one day. He couldn't stand hurting her either, purposefully or not.Instead Harper shrugged and swallowed to stall his quest for apt replacement words that could still deliver the truth.

"I kept reliving the day, processing...kept thinking about what I was going to do today. The day after that. So on. I'd forgotten how...immense, vast, everything is up here."

It was funny (in the soul-crushing way, not the ha-ha-ha way, like a humorous bone tickles when jarred against a stone and you feel it in your teeth). Harper talked about it being immense, when it seems to Lyndsi her world had just shrunk to managing her husband and son. Managing was the wrong word (it insinuates difficulties and struggles), but still--even Brackner manor, her gargantuan monster of a mausoleum and bane for years, seemed to have shrunk ten sizes.

It doesn't escape her that Harper's contemplating 'processing...what he'd do today' meant 'how much I wanted to punch my brother,' but she didn't know how to mention Max. Instead she nods.

"It must be...overwhelming." Her voice was soft, thumb on his wrist moving back and forth. Lyndsi doesn't look away. "I think a routine will be a good idea, too. Take it in bits. Start with things like, shopping." She smirks for a moment, "I mean what?"

Overwhelming was an appropriate word. It was neither an understatement or an exaggeration. There was no other word to use. He nodded, agreeing along until she brought up a possible example. His eyebrows rising before shaking his head, chuckling.

"Unlikely, but nice try." That wasn't to say that it was impossible, but he wasn't likely to add _shopping_ as a routine. Especially not a routine.

'Nice try,' Lyndsi giggles once, lifting her free hand to turn a gold curl behind his ear. She shakes her head once. "Well, we're free to discuss no-clothes rules of me," she winks, "when you get some new ones. It is amazing you know, how much you can feel better when you like your clothes you know."

She pauses, knowing that Harper's appearance was a sticking point from him.

"Let me spoil you." She teases.

"What's to discuss? That rule is still in effect, you know. That's non-negotiable," he joked, finding himself more comfortable than the day before, but that could be because they weren't actually in their bedroom.

"Now baby," she says chuckling while she let's their tangled hands together, shaking her head with a playful wink. "You know everything is negotiable for me."

She pauses; her eyes had caught the red lines on his hands. Then squeezes and smiles up at him, making a point to add, "Well. Except you're my husband. That's non-negotiable. Pretty much has been from the moment I met you, you know."

Lyndsi pulls gently on his hands to tug him in, pressing a kiss to his wrist. There was no doubt that Lyndsea had always been stubborn, and she'd already made herself a promise that when she noticed his scars she was going to kiss them - as long as he let her get away with it.

"Too true," he agreed with a fond grin, nodding once. He remembered taking pride in Lyndsi's abilities to talk her way in and out of everything. To her, there was no such thing as written in stone. Or if it was, she was of the belief that even writing in stone could be altered. He wasn't too sure which venture had been the last he remembered, but he did not try to remember too hard for he didn't want to bring up that which she might have already forgotten.

He made sure not to shy away as she brought his wrists up to her lips to kiss the scars there, instead he told and repeated himself that she wasn't doing that for herself, and that she wasn't forcing herself through it. Why would she, he tried logic, throwing them at his insecurity, when has she ever pretended with you?

She had a point though, he needed clothing that fit him and that wasn't a decade old with a bit more color than just black and grey. So he exhaled, nodding with a small smile.

"Okay, I'll start mentally preparing myself for it now," he briefly teased, chuckling because shopping ceased being the 'torture' it had been.

Harper nodded along to the other information, knowing that was imperative. Normally it would require a court hearing but handing over the Death Eaters on a silver platter, not his words, did have its benefits.

After tucking a curl behind her ear, she adds, "Though in the legal department, Shane called: his wife is available whenever you are for the paperwork to undo the death certificate...which, reminds me."

Harper nodded along to the other information, knowing that was imperative. Normally it would require a court hearing but handing over the Death Eaters on a silver platter, not his words, did have its benefits.

Her gaze casts over her shoulder towards the wooded family plot. Then back. She bites her lip.

"Do you have any idea who he actually was? I...would like to get him to his actual family if at all possible." Lyndsi breathes out, then smiles a bit guilty, "...sorry, I know that isn't exactly uplifting."

"No," he spoke quietly, shaking his head. "But it wouldn't be that difficult to figure out through missing persons report filed around that time, with my similar height and weight." Gina had been sickeningly talented, but she couldn't work with a blank canvas.

It was strange. Even in 24 hours it felt like...well like no time had passed and this was still their first moment together, and like they hadn't ever been separated.

Then she nods once, memorizing the information. She hoped that he hadn't been married. "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it."

Rubbing against the back of her neck, she let's her hand fall back to hold both of his. He takes her other hand as well, lacing their fingers together, grateful that she said she'd take care of finding out who the man had been. A smile crosses her lips again, before she adds.

"Other ideas for the routine you can think of?"

"I've not thought about it. I know there are a lot of potions and spells I left unfinished. I know Alcott mentioned Sienna's father, and wanting to help. I know I was beginning to delve into neurological synapses but I don't want it to be like you're having to share me with work. Again." He chuckled a little, licking his dry lips.

Speaking of getting away with, she thinks, echoing his chuckle as she breathes a sigh of relief to see him relax - even minutely. "Oh, I'll share you with whatever you ask me to. Provided you share back, naturally."

Lyndsi pulls her hands free to walk around the stall now, looking at the stables with a small smile.

"Al took care of them, you know. When he was nine," she wonders briefly why she said 'you know', when he probably didn't (but Harper knew everything), "he just marched into the study, declared they were being neglected and walked off into here to do it himself. Refused to let Jimmy help him learn to shoe too. And over there," she points at the tack room, "the feather on the wall? First one he collected when a foal was shedding."

She turns back to Harper, determined to share and do so with a smile, but she checks just to make sure.

"He scared me half to death when he declared it his responsibility. But see, your father," she says that in playful accusation, "told him you'd always done it. At Christmas, I might add, when the snow was taller than Alcott was, and he still went out there."

"Sounds like a plan," he agreed with a smile, nodding before she started to pull away to walk. He had chased her around here before too, he remembered.

"Yeah, he was telling me," he looked around too, smiling as he considered the image of a nine year old Alcott, even if the thought was bittersweet. He should have been here. The sentiment seemed to be underlying everyone of his thoughts. Harper also had some difficulty trying to imagine a nine year old version of his son, even if he had photographic evidence.

The strangeness of the statement the idea that Alcott had opened his mouth about his past seemed to escape her husband, so she let it drop. Six year old Alcott had been inquisitive and loquacious, afraid of nothing and eager to ask about it. (He still wasn't afraid). She doesn't want to draw attention to it.

And she wants to hope that thicker wolf skin or not...maybe their little boy was coming home a little too.

"Sounds like Dad. He probably made it sound like a competition too: 'your dad started taking care of them when he was ten!'" He was proud of Alcott for doing so, insisting on doing it himself. It just warmed him to know that Alcott had tried to find ways to stay connected to him.

"Oh definitely." Lyndsi giggles, slowing her walk as Harper follows her. Truth was she was looking to see if he would; she didn't want to act like she had ownership of his body (only he did, and he seemed to have forgotten that)--but he was just so goddamn tempting to ~~touch~~ right now. She could reach out and he was real.

"He used that all the time you know," she teases, lingering on a stall door and drumming her fingers along it, "'Your father got me water when I asked when he was only six--', 'ate the greens off my plate too when Elena isn't looking--', you know, that kind of thing." Lyndsi winks.

Harper snorted at that, laughing and then shaking his head. His father was, by all meanings of the word, shameless. As well as a few other adjectives, but mostly shameless. You couldn't even blame his eccentricity on his age (Harper could hear him ask 'what'd you say to me boy?' at the mention of age from here). He had always been that way. It was nice.

"Since when does he drink water anyways? Practically have to force it down his throat."

"Well he couldn't ask a seven year old to get him whiskey," Lyndsi answers faux-seriously, looping her free hand through the beam overhead like she was thinking about hanging on it. She felt light as air enjoying the conversation with her husband now; the emotions from yesterday had been exhausting as much as invigorating for her too. Smile flicking, she finishes her thought, "Alcott would have snuck a sip."

Or two dozen, and he probably did that anyway from his own father's refilling flask once he stole that. The hand in Harper's squeezed once, reassuring, as she notices something in his eyes, but the kind smile unmoved on his face keeps her calm.

"Never stopped him before," he quickly countered, smirking. It was a joke though, his father had never asked any of them to get his whiskey. Actually, for the very same reason; his father didn't care for sharing his liquor. He had no problem getting up to get drinks on his own and Harper was sure he was the same now.

"Oh, all right I'm kidding," she relents after shaking her head. "Except about talking about you and their library. Al would just disappear in there. Which was strange to me because he didn't like tall bookcases anywhere else--he kicked them over in Diagon once." Her lips twitch. "But then we always knew our son was going to be a handful. Each."

Harper leaned against a wooden beam as he grinned a little wider, happy to be listening. He even managed not to let the smile flicker at her last comment when Harper's immediate thought had been 'and I left you the two handfuls by yourself', especially as it was followed by a just as quick 'no, not by herself'.

"Well seeing as how he just helped take down a terrorist organization, I'd say we were pretty spot on."

"Pretty spot on, yeah, well we've always been pretty." Lyndsi was shameless too. "And Al's always been precocious. Now the trouble seems to be convincing him he should still take his O.W.L.S and finish school..."

"Correction, _you've_ always been pretty, I grew into it," he chuckled and leaned off the wooden beam.

"He can take the O.W.L.'s without going to school, you know. A point I made to my own parents when I was 13 and wanted to take them," he paused and then tilted his head.

"Of course, my parents ended up bribing me into staying."

Well, no, except now he made a point to get all his own things to prove he could. Brackners. Stubborn little (not cough) things, Lyndsi thinks (as if she isn't proud to be one of them). With an exhale as she leans with him, she swings her arm off the bannister above.

"Oi, now, wait just a moment." Her hand stays in the air, finger pointing to the sky and for the first time in ages Lyndsi thinks she might be a teenager again. "They bribed you, did they? And your completing N.E.W.T.s had nothing to do with meeting a certain someone at school, now did it?"

"Total bribe. I got acromantula venom to experiment with to stay for the O.W.L.'s and you know, in sixth year there I might have met someone special, true," he agreed as he nodded as if he were allowing it, as if it wasn't the honest and most accurate truth, "but I also got a basilisk fang. So." He shrugged before winking once.

"A basilisk fang?" She asks, as if she didn't remember well. "And let me guess: your father fetched it personally from the mouth in a thrilling, daring tale that bewilders the imagination."

Twisting her hands off her waist she threw them both in the air again, gesturing wild to exaggerate and extend her motions as if giving him time to recover from 'someone important.'

Now her hand falls to her hip. The words trip off her tongue, like she was singing with goodwill and humor. Clapping her waist, she sways, then has to admit, "The trouble being it's Hols round the world trip he wants to leave with, I suppose."

Well, next fall. Alcott was staying close to home for the foreseeable future. Lyndsea doesn't think she'll even have to ask him to. The trip around the world after Hogwarts was a pretty standard tradition, actually. Usually lasted a year. A year was quite a long time. And at the same time, not that long at all.

"It's ultimately his decision. When has a small thing like parental consent ever stopped a Brackner?" When he just moved on, Lyndsi pouts, before nodding. That point she had to concede.

"Yeah, all right, yeah fine." She chuckles, and then quiets looking at him as she hears herself add, "Certainly never stopped us. We were just a couple of kids then...and all we wanted was each other.

And the world, you know, secondarily. I was going to captain my own Quidditch World Cup team, I remember that. Think I wanted to be married _on ~~~~_a broom actually."


	8. A Little Bonding

Alcott was making damn sure he announced himself every time he came near his parents alone somewhere. They'd been wrapped so intently in each other's presence all week that as bright as they got when he arrived, he still always had the terrible feeling he was interrupting something...precious. Or maybe it was just precious to him: the sight of them in each other's arms, the fact his mother was smiling, the fact his dad was...well, there. He felt like a damn fairy. A damn fairy with little wings and fuzzy warm slippers.  
  
Nope, wait, that's what his mother looked like in the kitchen. She had a dressing robe on, true, not wings - but it was lacy and had the right flowers embroidered on it. Smirking idly to himself, he grabbed a piece of toast off the platter (and a few slices of ham, but sue his wolves body always craving meat, even at six in the morning), he asked idly, as if it were an idle conversation, "Dad in his lab?"  
  
Lyndsea nods at him, apparently heavily engrossed in this morning's Prophet. She'd taken to scowering it every morning for any mention of them, and any reference they needed to fine another reporter for violation of privacy. Or summat like that, Al wasn't sure, Ma was busy. How unusual.  
  
(Actually it was a bit weird, his stomach thought so anyways, but that might have been the jam accidentally on the ham. Or so he told himself, unsure why else he wouldn't have found his Dad in similar undress with his mother looking like that. He definitely, did not want to know.)  
  
Knocking twice and then opening, Alcott shuffles his feet behind the door as he calls out, "Hey-uh, Dad? You in here? ...Can we talk?"   
  
As much as he had said and thought that the time in his study was going to decrease significantly, he kept finding himself there. Never as long as before, nowhere near as long but he just couldn't stay away. It had always been a place of solace for him, a place where things made sense. He didn't want the fact that he was forcibly made to work for the Death Eaters to affect how he worked either. He's been affected enough.  
  
When he first stepped into the room a few days ago, he was surprised and a little glad to see it unchanged except for the fact it was clean and it had never been that clean. It wasn't yet at the level of messy it usually was but it was getting there. It was an organized mess, he knew where everything was.  
  
As someone knocked on the door, he looked up from his parchments, seeing Alcott at the door. Smiling, he nodded and then beckoned him inside with a hand.  
   
"Of course, son," he stood straighter, only now realizing he had been hunched over the table reading, and rubbed his neck absently.  
  
"Just going over my notes on neurological synapses," he explained, gesturing and then looked at his watch to check the time, a bit afraid he had let too much time passed but it was still early in the morning.  
  
"Aren't teenagers supposed to sleep till noon?," he asked teasing.  
  
Coming in, the words flashed across his own memory and he chuckles, quoting. "Concerning plasticity and their long term potential? LTP enhances cell communication by allowing the pre-synaptic and post-synaptic cells to communicate faster. This synaptic strengthening is long-lasting and thought to underlie learning and memory in an area of the brain called the hippocampus."   
  
He pauses as he lets the door shut. The rote recitation made him take a moment to understand his father was looking over notes that's most common avenue of research was addiction or behavorial changes over time. Taking a moment to breathe, when he turns back around he's sheepish and chuckling, "Not those in training to beat their own girlfriend at Quidditch."   
  
He grins, coming to stand beside his Dad, a little unsure as Al  looked over what he was doing. Hesitant, he was still glad to see Dad surrounded by things so...familiar. He used to need a stool to sit in here, he thinks, and now he was taller than Dad. Funny.  
  
Looking back up, he asks, "Was it a synapse-based solution? Making the uh-making my potion last foreseeably forever?"   
  
That was...near what he wants to discuss anyways.  
  
The recitation was word for word on a paragraph he had passed a few minutes ago. He looked up, unable to hide a proud smile off his face and then nodded.  
  
"Exactly," he chuckled and then watched him walk up, the smile still on his face and then laughed once more at his point. He and his girlfriend Hols were Quidditch rivals.  
  
"That's a match I'm not going to miss," he smirked briefly though if he were honest, he wasn't going to miss any of them, nothing else, not anymore.  
  
"No," he shook his head at Alcott's question, "the original potion was being burned out of the system and attacked by the white blood cells, so the permanent potion altered the white blood cells to not consider the potion a foreign material and instead a part of the host immune system."  
  
"Yeah?" Alcott's face came up so quickly he was surprised he didn't get a crick in his neck. With a smirk crossing his lips, he looks away just as fast, as if eager to suddenly get away from the fact he was acting like a seven year old who was told his father would make it after all to his school play. Heavens. Clearing his throat as his eyes survey the passage his Dad was reading, he mutters, small and proud, "Great, it's always a good game." Because sure, that was why his Dad was going to come. Pausing and then looking up again, now with a smirk, he adds, "Better after though, no matter which of us wins. Killer aphrodisiac."  
  
Maybe not 'killer', but then again there were those nights in the forest as wolf and lioness...  
  
Alcott leans back against the lab stool anyways, breathing in the mixed scents of different, simmering potions and herbs locked away in vials. Nose twice as sensitive, he couldn't help but wonder if the potion had given him other things permanently. It was...difficult to simply blurt that out, though.   
  
"Right..." He nods; that makes sense. It didn't explain why the potion worked in the first place, but the theory could have made anything permanent. The moon glitter must work as a binding agent, so instead of the moon changing him, the moon was 'inside him', in laymans terms--and he could now change at will.   
  
Clearing his throat again, as he looked around the lab, eyes on a certain bookshelf of green-spined books he hears himself say, "It's weird being back in here."   
  
Alcott was quick to add "I mean, a good weird, but...weird. I was supposed to come in here as part of therapy, face it, or whatever. Instead I kind of just," His grin was sheepish, "you know, threw things."  
  
There's a beat; his ears pick up on the skip in his father's chest.  
  
"Is it...weird for you? My, uh, not being six?"  
  
He laughs again, thoroughly unsurprised and smirking himself. A teenage Brackner werewolf that was like being hit with triple libido. Seemed a little wrong to be even the slightest bit envious of his own son especially for that fact.  
  
"A win either way." A concept Harper himself discovered at a young age himself. It tended to work pretty well, as long as things didn't get too bloody but Quidditch, Gryffindor versus Slytherin matches specifically, tended to be that way. Harper never played Quidditch for the house teams, but in pick up games in the grounds behind their manor with the whole family it always ended up being girls vs boys.  
  
Definitely, Alcott concluded, never certain if it was better when Hols was triumphant or when she points out (tries to*) she could still best him in other ways.  
  
Looking around as Alcott commented on how weird it was to be back here, Harper couldn't help but to agree. Their last memory here together was painful for them both. He nodded, already having heard a couple of stories about his interactions with the therapist.  
  
"It was weird coming here at first too," he nodded but then turned back to Alcott and smiled, "but I have more good memories here than otherwise and it still felt right. Just walking into the lab...except everything was so bizarrely clean," he chuckled too and then pursed his lips at Alcott's next question.  
  
"A little at first," he nodded being truthful, "I knew 9 years had passed but I guess it never completely clicked until I saw you again with my own eyes. If you're asking if I expect a six year old to come running down those stairs every day, I don't," he shook his head, smiling even if it was a little sad but not because he felt like his son was gone.  
  
Leaning back as he listens, it occurs to Alcott belatedly his father probably didn't want to think about it. He got that, he really did. Foot meet mouth, but at least it was a common Brackner trait. Besides, he needs to talk about it. The only person he ever wanted to talk about it with was there; he finally could just...get it all out, get it over with.   
  
He seems to listen with his whole body, eyes stuck on Dad's, shoulders hunching, nodding and utterly oblivious to the way his father's mouth moved a little sideways from his scar. Though he chuckled at the thought of his six year old self running, his stomach still twists.   
  
"Yeah. Though if you are expecting that it's pretty normal. I think Ma convinced herself every night for at least a year you were just in the lab at night. And I thought I saw you all the time. There were some weird moments too, like I was being followed: I swear someone took a picture of me out in Diagon."  He decides not to point out that he knew because he had been looking behind since he was buying Absinthe.  
  
"I spent years imagining it, and I'm done dreaming about it, I'm living it and...it's infinitely better," he chuckled, "to say the least. Is that what you wanted to talk about?"  
  
Moving his hand around the table absently, and fiddling with a vial he finds, he nods twice more. Breath stuck as he hears his father's heart-physically incapable of not doing so-he still tries to put it from his mind.   
  
"Yeah, kind of. I mean. I definitely agree, infinitely better than wondering and wishing. Be even better if I could let go of the anger but I've never been good at that. And the wolf doesn't help that. Unless it counts as therapy ripping squirrels apart which, I guess it does."   
  
Except he still hated that. The human him didn't see justice in hurting innocent animals instead of the humans responsible; the wolf just craved human flesh period.   
  
He was followed, Harper knew it, but did he burden his son with the knowledge when all the people responsible for it were already dead? Harper had never thought withholding the truth for someone was better for them in the long run but that was a Harper that had been...naive and optimistic. Either way, he just wanted to stop his family from hurting. Being there was a start, but it wasn't enough.  
  
"Something we both have to work on," Harper commented after swallowing a lump in his throat at the thought of continuing to be angry. That was the point, Gustav was dead, most of the death eaters were either dead or incarcerated but the anger was still there. Harper was angry, and anger was an exhausting emotion so he tried to do away with it as often as he could.  
  
"Well, except I'm not ripping apart squirrels," he tried to joke, smirk lifting to his lips again for the brief moment before the conversation turned serious again.  
  
Al spins the vial in hand before speaking again. "I had so many things I wanted to tell you, and now I just...barely know where to begin. I don't even know what you know. I guess I got used to the idea you were looking over me, which was kind of creepy sometimes not gonna lie, but now I can't even..."  
  
He sets the vial down, looks his Dad in the eye and suddenly does just, blurt it out.  
  
"Last time we were in here might have been the worst moment of my life, but it wasn't the worst moment of...us. You stood up to them, for me. And you just let me do the same for you and I'm grateful, I just. I need to know if you feel ashamed of that. Because I felt ashamed of it. I felt like if I hadn't been there you would have taken them all out. I distracted you. It was my fault. That Ma lost you, that you were taken, and hurt-it was because of me. And I'm just, I'm so...so, sorry, Dad."  
  
Harper understood, or did his very best to understand, how it must have been for his family here, thinking he was dead, thinking he was watching over them. Maybe they could tell themselves every time something good happened that he was looking on, and in that small way not entirely gone, but he was. And every single moment they thought he was with them, he wasn't, and he had no idea about. The best thing to assume, he was going to say, is that he didn't know anything (which was something difficult for Harper to admit to).  
  
The next sudden outburst from Alcott, made him start to narrow his eyes in momentary confusion only for them to soften as he realized what Alcott was getting at. He felt guilt for what happened, that if he hadn't been there, maybe things would have turned out differently.  
  
"No, no, Al," he spoke in a soft voice, trying not to let the pain come through on his tone, "I'm not ashamed, and it wasn't your fault. I was outnumbered, and had I acted rashly or too suddenly I might have actually died that day, I wasn't distracted in the slightest- I had never been more focused, more precise, more determined in my life. Everything I did, I did not only to keep you safe, but for us to be able to get out of it together- that I wasn't able to isn't on you. It isn't on anybody except those evil bastards and they're all dead now."  
  
"I know, I just-" Al spoke quickly, but fell dead silent, unable to finish the sentence with anything that didn't sound pathetic. Mouth gaping in his search for words, throat turning to cotton, he settles for clenching his jaw before he resembles a guppy.   
  
Everything Dad said made logical sense. A lot of what he said, Alcott had heard before. The back of the lab table seems to dig painfully into him at the thought. Gramps had said it, Ma had said it, Uncle Max had said it, Hols. The last had been the most noteworthy for the simple reason she wasn't a Brackner, and as Shawn's daughter held a unique viewpoint combined with the impressive ability of being able to cut through his bullshit. Dad was outnumbered, the Aurors jumped too quickly, if Al hadn't been told to hide they could have found him elsewhere in the house- tortured him. None of that was his fault. Logically.  
  
"I'm glad they're dead." It was a knife of a statement, cutting its way out of his throat as if to force himself to exhale. Anger was hot, red in his gaze and always too close for him to reach. As teeth sink into his tongue, he puts the vial back turning from his father to pick another up. This one held a viscous liquid, black from a distance, but actually deep emerald. Alcott smiles, however briefly, and something in watching the liquid flow down the glass seems to remind him to speak again.   
  
"I shouldn't be so glad people are dead, but I am. Only I only say shouldn't, because that's what I remembered learning from you. It was like, you left me all this research, these notes and a road map of where, how to make my own stand. I mean," his eyes meet his fathers, "You died, for me. Only now that statement's amended because actually you were living for me, in hell, and I..."  
  
He was trying to make sense of it, sense of his own complicated emotions, bumbling out of lips inept at capturing their sharp, jagged edges. If he was a guppy it was fresh caught, yanked from under the comforting sea and still flapping horribly in the wicker net.   
  
"I was ashamed. And because everyone told me how much like you I was, it just occurred to me-what you saw me, do down there, you might have been ashamed. Not of me, but of what I was willing to do..."  
  
Yeah, Harper was glad they were dead too. It had scared him how viscerally ecstatic he had been over their deaths, but nowhere near as frightened as he was now to hear that Alcott felt the same way. He wished beyond everything that it hadn’t come to this, but wishing wasn’t going to do bloody much, and there was no going back. That’s it, the only thing left was to keep moving forward.  
  
It frightened him to hear Alcott felt the same way because Harper knew what it was to have that much rage, that much anger and as a werewolf, that rage was at Alcott’s disposal much easier. Would the potion help with that? Would talking about it? Either way, Harper was keeping a close eye on everything now.  
  
What stuck him was the fact that Alcott said that he had taught him not to be glad people had died. That he had taught him to value the life of other people. Harper had never said that directly, not that he could remember, but look at what he dedicated his life to; almost every single potion and spell he had invented and patented was for the betterment of other people. Well, that’s how it had been before.  
  
“I’m not ashamed of what you’re willing to do, I wish it hadn’t gotten to that...but it did. And you know what I saw, down there? I saw a man willing to fight to protect his loved ones, and yeah, stick it to the evil arseholes- that’s not something to be ashamed about, son.”  
  
He wishes it hadn't come to fighting, but it wasn't something to be ashamed of that he had. Why would you wish for something else if you weren't at all ashamed of what you have already? Fear you might lose it? (Or fear you might keep it?) Alcott nods a moment, standing and putting the vial back, practically prepared to pace himself into the ground.   
  
"No, it isn't." Alcott agrees, eyes soft but with a voice better suited for those quiet moments of dark thrillers Nick had him watching, "And it's an accurate description of me." Which he loves, he _loves_ that his father knows him now.   
  
Still quiet, "That sounds like our demons are something descending from on high, and I stopped believing in God a long time ago."   
  
It stood to reason then too, that no God, no Devil. That wasn't to say Alcott didn't believe in a Devil- there was one in him, and most days it felt very separate from the wolf inside. He sins, he knows that, but at least he wasn't writing bloody tragedies anymore.   
  
"I'm not just willing, Dad, I'm capable. More than capable. I've done some things...I never dreamed I'd do, oh! And now my best mate's are going to be just as capable of killing me, isn't that lovely?"   
  
His smirk was bitter, but honest. That seemed his lot in life. Eliza already was capable of killing him actually, and that might scare him more than anything.   
  
Rubbing at his throat, he eyes his father's and then asks equally quiet, "Dad. What did they make you do?"


	9. Almond Milk

Tip-toeing down to the kitchen of the Brackner family home, Hols found herself unable to sleep. When she was younger and she couldn't, Winnie would take her to the kitchen, give her some milk and they'd share cookies, double chocolate chip. The milk was always cold, because warm milk was disgusting.  
  
Now as a vegan, and an adult (scary thought), that routine had to change. Almond milk and the vegan cookie substitute. The latter, she wasn't going to find in the house but they did have almond milk, which is what she was heading directly towards.  
  
Reaching the kitchen, she opened the door as quietly as possible, feeling her way through the mostly dark room to find the light switch. Flipping it, she almost had a heart attack when she saw someone was already there, sitting at the small table.  
  
"Jesus!" She clutched her chest as she breathed.  
  
"Sorry, just me," Harper apologized with a small smile, both his hands up before dropping them back on the table, "Didn't mean to scare you.  
  
Hols exhaled and chuckled, trying to calm down her heart again as she smiled too. Did no one in this family *sleep*? It was eerie how similarly she had run in to Lyndsea during the past summer.  
  
"Just startled, is all. I didn't think anyone would be awake." Obviously, or she would have worn pants. Pulling one of Alcott's shirts further down as she walked to the table, spotting the almond milk set in front of him next to an open container of Christmas cookies.  
  
"Just came down for a snack," he explained before motioning to the seat across from him, "Want some?"  
  
"I'll have a glass," she accepted as she pulled the chair back and sat down, "no thanks on the cookies." Harper made a tall glass appear out of nowhere with a wave of his hand and without a single word before pouring her some almond milk. She took it with a soft thank you and took a sip, being very pleased to find it was still as cool as if he had just gotten it out of the fridge.  
  
"So why almond milk?," Hols asked, curious.  
  
"I'm lactose intolerant," Harper replied after a bite of a snowflake shaped cookie.  
  
"Oh, I didn't know that. Hence why there's always almond milk in the house, I always wondered."   
  
Hols realized she had been thinking of Alcott's father only as some sort of superhuman superhero genius. Back from the dead, survived all these years, helping his family in secret, making sure they were safe, fighting to get back to them...and he was lactose intolerant. For a moment, the two didn't compute. Then she wanted to kick herself. Hols wasn't one for idolizing but she had gotten as close as she ever had with Harper.  
  
"So you've sneaked down here before," Harper correctly assumed, a little twinkle in his eyes as Hols was momentarily abashed. Chuckling, Harper added, "Lyndsi used to do the same."  
  
"Really?" Hols grinned, smirking briefly as she leaned her chin on the palm of her hand. Truthfully, it wasn't until a month ago that Hols started to actually -like- Lyndsea, as well as Max. The way Al used to speak about them, or rather not speak about them, didn't really depict them as nice people. Lyndsea looking at Hols like she was a hooker while walking out of her son's room didn't help matters.  
  
As it turned out, Alcott was horribly biased (shocking, right?), a not-so-positive trait they shared, and completely unreliable. Not to mention, he had never moved on from his father's death, none of the Brackners had. Thank God, or rather thank Harper himself, that wasn't the case anymore. The Brackners were actually...pretty cool, no matter what Dalma and Lynn said. The entire family seemed restored. Well, not the entire family. One visit to Zoe's to check on her after she was released from the hospital let her know her best friend, almost lover, and Alcott's uncle Max was living there indeterminably.  
  
"My mother also met Lyndsi while she was sneaking in here," Harper elaborated further, "so you see, you already have that much in common." Hols laughed once, a comical 'ha!' that made her quickly wince, cover her mouth, and then repeat quietly again.  
  
"You don't have to sneak around anymore though," Harper advised, his smile sincere, "you're welcome here, Hols. Mi casa," he gestured with his hands all around him and then dropped them again without finishing the common saying.  
  
"Force of habit," Hols explained after another sip of her milk, curling her leg under her as she got more comfortable. Hols thought she was going to be more awkward, thankfully she had some social grace still left. It was more than odd for Hols to give a shit what someone thought of her, let alone to actually want to make a good impression.  
  
"I sneak around at my houses too," Hols nodded.  
  
"Houses?," Harper asked, clearly curious about her choice of words.  
  
"My parents separated...though they were never really together, long story, I was actually born in a room full of...vampires...," she paused as she realized she was coming full circle. Oh, hell. It was always meant to be this way wasn't it? Because the universe was a total slut for irony.  
  
"Vampires?"  
  
"Long story, but I guess you could say I was born for a life of excitement.  
  
I certainly think so! My mom and her not-husband have a house in London, a cottage style home in Devon, and a ridiculous mansion in Spain we use in the summer. My dad and his not-wife never settle down, ever. They get bored, they go to their cabin in the Andes or the Alps. They're mountain climbers, photographers, and they're always on the go, so they have places everywhere. Obviously, they also have a place here, and in Wales, that's where they're from.  
  
So I live everywhere. Ergo, houses."  
  
"I see a pattern," Harper teased after nodding, showing that he followed along easily.  
  
"No homes?" He questioned after, taking another bite of a Christmas tree-shaped cookie this time. A few crumbs fell as he bit into it, but they fell to the table and immediately disappeared from sight. Neat trick.  
  
"Pardon?" Hols eyebrows scrunched up, a bit confused by the question.  
  
"You said houses, you have a lot of houses. Any homes?"  
  
Huh, Hols never thought about it like that. Tapping the edge of her glass of milk with her short but clean nails, she chewed on her bottom lip and then released it as she realized the answer.  
  
With a chuckle, she admitted, "I don't know about homes, but there's two places that cut it pretty close. The woods," she grinned as Harper chuckled, inclining his head as he gestured for her to continue, "and my best friend Lynn's house. Oh Lynn Rivers-"  
  
"Daughter of the Minister of Magic, yes," he nodded, "and apparent 'not-friend' of my son?"  
  
"They love each other," Hols nodded along, "they just know their lives would be too dull if they stopped bickering." Hols smiled, shaking her head before clearing her throat and continuing.  
  
"But, yeah, her house. They've been there forever. Her parents bought it together after they got married and our moms are best friends, and we grew up as sisters. So I was always over at their house and without fail every time I was upset I either sneaked off to the woods, or I climbed through Lynn's window."  
  
Hols licked her lips, "I know it sounds weird. But-"  
  
"Not at all," Harper shook his head, his long and pale fingers laced together as they laid still against the tabletop, "it sounds like you're in constant motion. As evidenced by the fact you fidget a lot even while sat down." Hols smiled, knowing he was right. She didn't take it as an insult or anything like that.  
  
"It makes sense, that the constant would be home to you," he finished with a a shy smile, "if you'll forgive the psychoanalysis."  
  
"That's fine. Devin does it all the time, I'm used to it. And that's completely right, yeah. Even still, I've got too much of my parents in me; I'm twice as bad as they ever were about keeping still and settled. That's why I'm going to travel the world as a zoologist."  
  
Amused, Harper noted, "You seem pretty certain about what you want. Not an usual trait for someone so young."  
  
Truthfully, she wanted to say that she had always been certain and was now more certain than ever but she wasn't so sure. First of all, she'd actually wanted to be a police officer like her Daddy for the longest time. After realizing her inability to follow orders, her reckless behavior, general disdain and disregard of rules, and the fact she actually couldn't stand most people a good half of the time, Hols reevaluated. Of course this all happened before she had even turned eight. She had decided she'd leave the saving the world to others, and instead focused on saving the planet. Difference? Yes.  
  
And the whole world was witness when she told everyone to fuck off after the whole mess in Paris. If she were a more vengeful person she would have probably declared a one-woman global manhunt, of rather wolfman-hunt, but there was also a lot of things going on right here, and right now. This freaky connection to a vampire for example. For the first time in her life (fine, she might be exaggerating), Hols had no idea what to do.   
  
"When you were younger, did you ever feel like you were meant to do something? Like, you were born for it?"  
  
"No," Harper admitted after a single scoff and chuckle. Hols found herself smiling, if only because Harper's laugh was really nice, and it reminded her of Alcott's. She was also very surprised that was his answer.  
  
"When I was a child, I was too busy trying to figure out what happens when I mix basilisk and acromantula venom together," he chuckled again.  
  
"What does happen?" Hols asked, grinning wide.  
  
"A new kitchen," he smirked briefly, "no doubt you've heard this is actually the third version of this kitchen." Hols exhaled, familiarly exasperated. Only a Brackner would be proud of having destroyed the kitchen to the point of remodeling.  
  
"And in my early teenage years I was too busy showing off and proving well-respected scientists and potion makers wrong to worry about what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't know I wanted to help people until I stumbled on a way to make a potion capable of clearing blocked arteries."  
  
"I haven't heard that story," Hols declared, interest growing, "Alcott told me of the potion you got patented in school, the invisibility potion the Ministry bought."  
  
"Ah," Harper wiped his upper lip with his hand before tilting his head sheepishly, "that's a little less...commendable of me. I made it for one of the other students as sort of an exchange. He was caught with it, sold me out, but he was the son of the then Head of Magical Law Enforcement. We worked out a deal. I didn't as much sell it as I negotiated my ass out of getting detention."  
  
Hols found herself laughing with him. Again, she found it so odd to think of Harper as a kid, in school, avoiding detention like she had been. Then again, she never really avoided detention as much as she sought it out.  
  
"I can't say I was born for something specific...except, now I would say, I was born to be with my wife," Harper inclined his head and Hols smiled while keeping an 'aww' quiet. That was sweet, maybe a bit too sweet for Hols' tastes but so lovable anyways.  
  
"But if that's how you feel...go with your gut," he offered. Hols could tell he didn't know if that was what she wanted to hear. She also realized he probably wasn't used to giving advice, and she didn't want to discourage him otherwise.  
  
"Gut feelings are actually a lot more trustworthy than you think," he continued before Hols had a chance to actually say anything in response, "the intuitive right brain is almost always analyzing your surroundings even when you are otherwise engaged, and instinct is just as important as rational thinking."  
  
Hols nodded, "No, I will, thanks, Harper." She finished the rest of her milk with a long sip and then sighed contently. Hit the spot, every time.  
  
Harper nodded as well, capping the tin of cookies and setting everything back to its proper place with another wave of his hand and then going to stand.  
  
"I'm gonna head back upstairs, I told Lyndsi I wouldn't take long."  
  
"Of course, thanks for the talk," Hols smiled, actually thankful. There must have been something in her expression because Harper paused before adding something else.


	10. Safe In My Arms

After slipping the bandage a little further down her arm now to cover more than the well-treated burn, Lyndsi brightens up and plays for half an hour with her make-up. It's like she's sixteen again, stealing her sister's and then her mother's when she realizes Sel doesn't have anything but black. There's no way in hell she's ever going to wear anything black again.   
  
(Besides, that seems to help Harper: he'd never seen her in black Before.)  
  
Humming to herself throughout the morning, she barely falters when a stiff-backed man comes to deliver a box. Inside are things that make her shiver, photographs of her and her son in what she thought were private moments. "Still." She tells him, knowing the man won't care, "It is nice to know we shared them with Harper too."  
  
Lyndsi always had a talent for finding the bright side. (Something Lyndsea had forgotten, honestly).   
  
Taking the box and leaving it in the dining room for now, she went back to the kitchen for food, pausing only at the study door to hear her boys laughing as they worked. The smile that crosses her own face is like a shooting star that falters for just a moment before catching a miraculous second wind. They had wanted too hard and too much for the 'having' to be simple or happy. Damn Brackner hypocrisy, she swore she wasn't going to let that rub off on her when she married him, seriously, when had that happened!?  
  
After eating, she hears Alcott bounding out the front door with some exciting news for Hols, get chastened by Jimmy, and then sees him without abash reappear in their kitchen. Giggling as he apologizes she kisses her forehead, waits for the exasperated 'Maaaa' and then let's him go. She waits a few minutes before beginning to get uneasy that Harper hasn't come found her yet, then gets up and searches herself. Half-heartedly saying 'Marco', as she did when they were newly weds, she isn't surprised he doesn't hear her--especially when she realizes he's in the dining room. With the pictures from--right, hell, she should have put those away--  
  
"Harper?" She asked near the door, but when she sees how tense his shoulders were she hastens forward until she has her hands hovering over them, her face in front of his, between him and the box.  
  
"It's okay," she swears hard, like she's convincing herself, "you're home, Harper, it's real. I'm, real."  
  
The picture in his hands shook violently as he struggled to swallow the lump that had grown in his throat. It was ironic that something that the very things that had arguably been the brightest aspect of his time in captivity now filled him with such intense fury and worry. It wasn't the subject of the pictures, of course not, but the mere reminder that they were the only memories of his family that he'd had during those years. Stolen memories, private memories that didn't belong to him. He was as much a stranger to them as whoever had secretly intruded and taken the pictures.  
  
He was in the dark room again, barely more than a cell with no windows, no source of natural light whatsoever. He could see his work desk, every inch covered in potions more dastardly than the previous ones. He could see the tiny bed crammed into a corner, and the very shelves which housed the pictures in the box and the one in his hand, along with more potions, more ingredients, countless of notes written with a hand that ached to hold a pen.  
  
He would look at the pictures every day, take in every possible detail as if he hadn't memorized them the moment he received each one of them, afraid they could one day be taken away. For Harper, he wasn't just remembering. For a horrifying minute, it was real and he was there.  
  
The picture frame and glass broke in his hands, covering his palms in a number of mostly shallow cuts. Enraged and panicked, he moved forward, pushing past Lyndsi (although he wouldn't realize it until later). Grabbing the box, he picked it up and threw it, sending it crashing against the opposite wall with a yell of his own.  
  
Half-stepping out of his way, half pushed, Lyndsi barely notices how off balanced she is. Perhaps, it's because that's how she feels she should be: she's off balance because her husband is, their walls shaking off glass and broken wood, her ears ringing with a shout that seems to come from his soul. Shaking herself, she stays against their dining room table to prevent him touching her again (Harper blames himself enough).   
  
"Harper!" She yells herself, hands white-knuckled and folded around the corner of the table, trying to cease shaking. She was glad suddenly, so glad, that Alcott wasn't home.   
  
"Harper, you're home." She implores, voice scraping at her vocal chords as she repeats it and shakes her head at him, face ravaged. Finally lifting her hands again as she's stopped shaking and takes a few steps closer to him, "Harper please, listen to me."  
  
Harper began to breathe too quickly, inhaling and exhaling in quick gasps as he turned away from the broken glass, his knees buckling, making him stumble as if he were drunk. Tears clouded his vision, and his ears felt waterlogged, unable to hear anything but a dull echo and his own heartbeat.  
  
Lightheaded by his hyperventilation, he stopped trying to keep his footing and tumbled to the floor. Huddled into a ball, he squeezed his knees to his chest, his knuckles white (more than usual) from the effort as sobs ransacked his chest. Unable to control himself, he began crying.  
  
  
The moment he went down, Lyndsi has to stop herself from jumping forward, jarred from a sight she wished were less familiar with by this point. Exhaling harsh in a short gasp of pain, she falls beside him, forcing her steps to be slow so as not to terrify him. Palms extended, she still speaks in a normal voice (she'd learned by now that if she whispers she would scare him, and doesn't allow herself to think of the reasons why). Though normal was a stretch, actually, she was speaking on a throat clearly ravaged by her empathy and sympathy. Seeing Harper cry...  
  
"Harper," she says steadily, hands up, "It's Lyndsi. I'm here, I'm with you. Would you let me," she tries not to choke with her plea, "let me, hold you? Please?"   
  
Though she was glassy-eyed, she refused to cry.  
  
He wasn't too sure how long it took for him to be aware of where he actually was but the moment he did, Harper only began to cry harder with shame and guilt. Lyndsi's voice cut through everything else, tethering him to the reality which at the moment seemed only marginally better than where he had been, just because of the state he was in.  
  
Unable to do anything but nod for another extended period of time, when he finally gained control of his breathing enough to speak, an onslaught of apologies left his wet mouth intermittent with his sobs.  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry."  
  
The moment she has permission -- something that truthfully she hates asking for, hates having to wait to comfort him and has to remind herself the act of asking for was comforting -- Lyndsi has her arms around him. She's smaller than him, always has been, but he's skinny enough despite her and his mother's best efforts that her arm makes it around his shoulders. The other holds his neck soothing as she can manage (considering the bandage), shhing and shaking her head insistently, "It's all right, husband, I understand, I forgive you."  
  
Lyndsi was getting that word 'husband' into almost everything she could and she has no idea what he was even apologizing for at this point, but she knows she shouldn't dismiss it either. Gritting her back teeth, she slips her hand forward to grasp his cheek and rubs the tears away as best she can, then kisses his forehead.  
  
"You're all right, you're home, I swear," she repeats, hopelessly to herself as much as him, holding as hard as she can and trying for force her own strength into his bones.  Muttering, "I'm sorry, I should have thrown those away."   
  
Her forehead presses to his.  
  
As she accepted his apology he was too relieved to hear it to even consider she didn't know what he was talking about. Harper would soon realize he didn't know either. It's just what felt the most natural to him at the moment; he couldn't find it in himself to say anything else. He was sorry for freaking out, for throwing the box, he had never been violent before, for ruining what had been turning out to be a good day.  
  
Once he had calmed down long enough, his apologies quieted and his breathing evening helped by her words and touch, he started nodding again, doing everything he could to keep his eyes open. If he didn't he was afraid the scene would change again.  
  
"It just felt so real," he admitted still shaky, "like I hadn't even left."  
  
The thought turns her stomach and flutters a wrinkle through her lips. Harper hasn't given her any details (the scars crisscrossed on his back tell the story well enough -- and well was the wrong word). She's grateful for that, and yet she thinks in some ways Harper has to talk about it, has to get it out, she was being selfish in not asking him.   
  
So at his words she steels herself, kisses his forehead and rubs more tears off them both, reaching in to her pocket for the tissues she'd taken to carrying for him. When Harper had resettled, she speaks still with her arms around him. "You did leave. It's over now, you're safe here, you're *safe*." She kisses his forehead one more time. Then ventures hesitantly, "If you want to tell me what you saw, I'm listening Harper. Help me understand. I want to help you."  
  
It had been so long since he had felt safe that he had forgotten what it felt like. But here, in Lyndsi's embrace is where he felt safest. Feeling that way when she wasn't around or when he was alone took more effort than he'd care to admit. Getting back to normal in general involved a lot of effort, which he knew would be true but he still expected it to be easier. As if he were some sort of exception to the rule, thinking the grueling, extended recovery didn't apply to him. It was more wishful, ignorant thinking than just usual Brackner hypocrisy.  
  
This was the first time Lyndsi had ever asked him about what happened down there directly. She never did, merely told him it was okay and that he didn't have to talk about it if he didn't want to. Truthfully, he didn't want to talk about it because he didn't want to burden her with that knowledge. How much good could talking about it do? But inversely, he knew ignoring a problem didn't make it go away.  
  
"I was just back there, in that miserable, dark room, and it brought everything back, how I felt being there...they tortured me every day, for three years, until I couldn't take it anymore, I co-I couldn't," he shook his head with another gasp.  
  
Three years...dear God, Lyndsi almost mutters the prayer before remembering it was a decade since she'd believed in any God apart from the one in her arms. She'd thought (her mother hoped) that having Harper back might mean there was a God after all-there was something in the universe helping good people find righteous victories. Now she knows she still doesn't believe in anything that could allow Harper to be so hurt. It wasn't God that reunited them, just Harper's will.  
  
 Rubbing her hand over the crown of his forehead, she leans back against the table's foot and angles his head in her embrace. Lyndsi knows he's not seeing the reality around him (he'd just told her that) but she can't help but think he might be able to focus on her bosom instead.   
  
"No one could take that." She murmurs quietly, eyes still glassy. Her arms hold him closer as she nods in agreement, blind and willing. "Three years," her voice shakes, "it's outrageous, it's infuriating, it's...heartbreaking, honey, and I'm still proud of you."  
  
Nodding, because it's the easiest movement he could do, he stays in Lyndsi's embrace without further movement or words for a few more minutes. He was just laying there in a heap on the floor of their dining room. It was so sad he almost started laughing but knowing that would ultimately lead to more crying and tears he bit on his lip instead.  
  
"I waivered, I did, I faltered, I wasn't strong and I lost myself...for a long time, I did, I thought I was going to die there. I did so many horrible things, I hurt a lot of people. All those kids- and I hated them for giving in just like I did. I just stood by and let it happen, and I didn't interfere. Julio, Nadia, Eliza, I didn't do a thing to stop it. We all killed...I killed, I killed, I hated them and all they did was break, all they did was want the pain to stop, the nightmare to end. How am I better, why-" His words began to make even less sense from that moment forward until Lyndsi mercifully interrupted his incoherent babbling.  
  
At first Lyndsi was determined to do nothing but listen, calm and steady as she could be rocking him in her arms back and forth. The descriptions were making her shake; the rock was a compromise. She hadn't wanted to disagree with him, thought it was important she didn't when his ego was so wounded--but what was she supposed to do? Listen to him call himself a terrible person?! All he did was try his best to survive. It was the circumstances that were terrible; no one should have to live like he did...  
  
When he asked why, she couldn't take it anymore, just cupped his neck and kisses his forehead first before speaking.  
  
"That isn't all you did." She swears, shaking her head. "More importantly, what you did isn't who you are, Harper--it's what they wanted to force you to be, and if they'd succeeded you wouldn't be in my arms right now, and you are, you *are.*"  
  
Brushing a tear off her own cheek and hiding her arm over his shoulder when she sees the bandage had slipped, she just kisses his forehead again and pulls him back to her.  
  
"Of course you hated them. You were angry, you should have been angry. I would have hated them too."  
 Maybe, maybe not, but Lyndsi had begun learning that Harper associates anything she does at the moment as being heavenly, and she sees no reason not to use it to help him see the truth: he wasn't bad, he wasn't lost...he was hiding, hurt.  
  
"You couldn't have saved them by interfering, Harper, but you were always a doctor. Rachelle--she told me how you helped her, helped her family...pack, I mean. And you taught Nadia those spells, and all about those secret passages we used at your Aunt's dreadful party, do you remember that?" She asks the last suddenly hopefully, eyes meeting his as best she could manage. "Do you remember when we snuck out?"  
  
With regaining strength he began reaching for her, needing to hold on to her tighter, though he was careful not to hurt her (as if he could manage that in his condition even if he wanted to, and every fiber of his being fiercely rejected the entire premise, the entire possibility that there was any universe in which he would be capable of hurting his wife).  
  
"I was no better," he repeated, his voice hoarse, "tortured, broken, hopeless, that's who I hated." His bottom lip quivered.  
  
Despite his surprise at her addressing the pack as Rachelle's family, he focused instead on her point but had a hard time being comforted by it when he knew that he would have never helped them without being coerced into it.  
  
As her words instead recalled a memory shared between the two of them, a memory that truly was their own and no one else's, he smiled.  
  
"I do," he nodded again, "you wore that deep green dress and I never found that bow tie." He chuckled but the sadness still hadn't left him and a half sob managed to escape along with it, his eyes still glassy.  
  
"Maybe not," she exhales to mask a tiny note of discomfort until she's shifted fully to keep the bandage stuck behind him as he wraps his arms around her to. Her eyes shut as she snuggles into him, her nose burrowing in his hair, brown and the underlying scattered grey strands alike. "So you weren't better. It doesn't change the fact I love you."  
  
She was rock solid in that conviction and hoped it was enough, because the truth was she also is desperate to believe that their days of hurting anyone were long behind them. They have to be. Right?!  
  
As he half laughs and sobs, she does to, nodding against him and grinning back down, the little tear on her upper lip notwithstanding.   
  
"Which was a shame." She says, as nonchalant as she can manage, "as I loved it, and bowties are cool."  
  
As she says that her voice changes to tease in that of the eleventh doctor's voice. Then she kisses his forehead once more while she shifts to lay her feet out irregardless of the dress she wore.   
  
"I still have that dress, you know." She adds in another soft murmur, grinning, "And you know, the article where they reported my entire wardrobe that evening in. You know they did that last week too? First time in ages, but they did, said exactly what I wore when we were at the Ministry." She was rambling now, but at least she was telling him things that were the same however small they were.  
  
Lyndsi didn't know any other difference between him and the people he had killed and gotten arrested other than the fact he had her love, and none other mattered to her. Perhaps he should begin to consider it in the same way. Hearing her say it still felt like breathing in fresh air.  
  
His smile continues to soften the more she speaks, calmed as much by the sound of her voice as by what she said.  
  
"They still do that?" Harper chuckled again, still amazed that there were still people who chose to report on outfits for a paper and call it news. Then again the world of fashion had always eluded him.  
  
Turning his head further to look up at her, he smiled, "I love you."  
  
"Apparently, they still haven't learned my beauty doesn't come from my clothes," she says with a lilt to her voice, relief coloring her expression when she hears his. Lyndsi couldn't help it. Whatever knowing this would do to her later she can't fathom, too busy being glad he's calmed down and too glad of having him back in her life to care. She could put up with anything if she could keep him.   
Smile softening and cheeks pinking at his words as he tips his head up at her she leans down, craning her neck. Her first whisper is echoing his words, "I love you too. I *told* you, I'm never ever letting you go."  
  
Yes, 'never ever' was something she hasn't said since she was a young girl, but it is appropriate. This time she kisses his lips, just briefly, and then pulls back giggling and going to hand him a tissue and grabbing one herself.   
  
"That is an outstanding stupidity," he commented with a small smirk, "trust me, I've seen plenty." And had participated in some too, though he did loathe to admit to it aloud. Speaking his thoughts aloud, that was something else that he had to work on as well. It seemed almost everything required work on his part.  
  
They kiss briefly before accepting the tissue, now brought back further into the room. He wiped under his eyes and nose, letting his head rest on her chest, "I'm sorry about the pictures, they're the one happy detail I had, I didn't want to destroy them...Just caught off guard."  
  
Now cradling him to her as much as she could laying on the dining room floor, she finds herself chuckling at the remark and tilting her head. She knew what he meant, but she chose to focus on the idea of him seeing her instead, eyes surveying her front as she remarks teasingly, "Yes, you have seen plenty, dear husband." And she kissed him again once the tissue was moved.   
  
Once he resettled on her lap again, resting with an almost uncanny resemblance to a young Alcott apart as he lays near her chest, she smiles softly as she looks at him and shakes her head just as gently.  
  
"I understand. We can fix them, if you want to. Then keep them in a different place so...you can keep the bright moments, but, not...be so caught off guard again."  
  
Harper considered her suggestion, finding himself agreeing with it, well mostly. He liked the idea, keeping his happy memories happy, regardless of where they had originated and how he had come to have them, but there was a detail he wouldn't mind changing.  
  
"As long as we buy new frames, and yes I am aware I've just sentenced myself to another afternoon of shopping in the near future," his smile turned wider with the tease before it softened again, "then yes. I'd like that."  
  
New frames she thinks with a small chuckle distracting her at his aside.   
  
"Now that sounds perfectly fair to me." Her smile was soft ever wide as she can't help it. Harper had always hated to shop. But he hadn't always hated to shop with her. They'd had too much (ahem) fun. She won't mention that right now either; Harper had broken down here and that was still a point of...contention slash frustration for them.   
  
So instead she gently slides one hand down to his wrist, trying not to do more than blink as she lifts the palm covered in small cuts up very gently.   
  
"Will you let me treat you?" She asks, folding his hands gingerly so she kisses the back of his palm, making sure to linger with her eyes on his. The other arm she keeps around his shoulders.  
  
He hadn't even acknowledged the cuts on his palm until now when Lyndsi mentioned them. They didn't sting or hurt. It was the least troublesome thing about him, but it was also the easiest wound that Lyndsi could remedy and he wouldn't take that away from her.  
  
He nodded again with another smile, moving so he sat more comfortably for both of them.   
  
Glad by his simple acquiescence, Lyndsi straightens her back importantly. Harper always had taken care of her, right down to the bandaged burn on her arm she's left longer than necessary. It hid the red mark from his thumb from last night, but woe betide anyone who says Lyndsi's husband couldn't hold on to her for comfort. Period, Q.E.D., and all other scientific theory conclusory statements. She was as proud of that as if it were a hickey.   
  
Now here he was smiling at her that she could take care of him too, and she smiles too. Harper was too addicted to apologizing every time she tries to do so; exhibited by her needed forgiveness to hold her husband in her arms on their dining room floor. At least she could say wholeheartedly she did give it. She forgave him for wanting to be strong for her just as much as she forgave his percieved failure to be so. Physically, no, he wasn't strong-so she could forgive him wanting to be. Didn't every man, just like every woman wants to be beautiful no matter how they might decry make-up companies all being owned by men?  
  
Lifting his hand to her, she presses her palm over it to first murmur a soft spell, warmth spreading from her fingertips to steralize and soothe. When she was done, she held her other arm out to telekinetically summon a First Aid kit, opening it to wipe blood off as gently as she could and dabbing each small cut with Neosporin before wrapped the largest two in bandage cloth tape. Satisfied, she leaned down and kissed over the cloth before looking back up at him, smile wide.  
  
"There. No harm done. And you gave me an excuse to touch you, really." She winks.  
  
He inspected Lyndsi's spell work with no lack of pride. It was often the case that most people overlooked Lyndsi's own intelligence and magical ability because his was superior, but those who did neglected to realize how talented his wife really was. She wasn't just beautiful and well-dressed, though of course those attributes were also accurate. She was a remarkable woman who had needed not her skill to bewitch him entirely.  
  
Sitting forward more as she finished, small cuts all dealt with, he chuckled at her brief tease (and proceeded to ignore the small flicker of anxiety that was a near constant with him), "All part of my plan."  
  
He swallowed after a moment, reminded of the mess he'd made, "I should clean that before Alcott gets home."  
  
"Clever boy," she mused as teasing as he managed, alike in their anxieties as much as their abilities to make jokes from them. Or perhaps, Lyndsi thinks quietly as he looks to the broken glass, he wasn't as free to joke about it all as she was but...she was going to pretend for now, because God knew they needed a laugh. Now if only his power of positive thought could last long enough to the bedroom but--she didn't know how to begin to address that problem, considering any statement she made would either make it seem like she only wanted him to get better for sex or like she didn't think he was a man. Neither of which could be further from the truth, but try convincing a Brackner experiencing difficulties in this department they were still tres masculine and *then* talk to Lyndsi about it, okay? (No, seriously, someone tell her how to do this.)  
  
"Okay," she agrees, thinking he'd feel coddled if she offered to help. "Go ahead then."  
   
Looking away from the mess, she finally frees her hands, resting them instead so he could pull away if he so needed.   
  
"He'll be a few hours, I think. Said he was going to show Hols...er, something you two did this morning, what was it, anyway?"  
  
Sitting a little straighter, he picks up his bandaged right hand and waves it to make the broken glass and wooden frames disappear. The pictures he returned to the box for now given that he had nowhere else to store them for the time being and levitated the box back on to the dining room table, guiding it with his pointer finger and setting it down.  
  
Calmed even more just by cleaning up the mess, he nodded as Lyndsi said Al would be a couple of hours still.   
  
"We were working on the concept of a self-perpetuating machine or process. In theory it would be a cycle that once begun would continue indefinitely without any external input of energy, rather using it's own, hence the name, but it's seemingly impossible in practice because of losses of energy in the form of friction, heat, et cetera. It's just a puzzle I suggested, and that would require breaking the first and second law of thermodynamics to solve. Alcott did manage to bend them far enough to achieve a near self-perpetuating system; in practice, he's created a self-charging battery. But like I said, it's only near self-perpetuating, it'll eventually run out and magic is an external input, but it's got practical applications, self-generating power *and* power storage. 'Course the moment it becomes an output to power something not in the isolated system then it ceases being self-perpetuating, it would already have to be part of the system to continue. Still, at the very least it's handy on a trip. The magic and math gets different when the size of the system increases and it's no bigger than a thumb."  
  
  
Lyndsi tries to follow, she really does, but she gets distracted as ever by two things, distinct and noteworthy for opposing reasons. The first thing she thinks is how incredible it is to hear Harper get all over excited about his experiments again, how adorable he looks, how happy, how... alive. Her heart skips with joy and her skin flushes pink and cheeky. Secondly, she wants to scold him for breaking the laws of physics *again.   
  
Compromising with herself with a giggle that turns into a sigh that turns back into his name and a smile, Lyndsi leans forward to cup his cheek and kisses the other one. Then she pokes his chest.  
  
"Theoretical problem my dairy-ann," she chuckles again with a shake of her head. "I am definitely certain the last time you were solving only a 'theoretical problem', we set the stables on fire, and," she taps his lips with her index finger pointedly,  "don't say I distracted you, how could distraction from a hypothetical question cause flames?!"   
  
She goes to stand up as she makes her point, unbandaged arm hanging at her side to hold his hand as he comes up.  
  
"Alcott's been hard *enough* to keep in school already, dear Merlin..." Her hand pats off her skirt with the disgruntled mumble that her smile completely gives away.  
  
The familiar expression of fondness compiled with exasperation is enough to bring his own smile back, one that had nothing to do with entropy or esoteric concepts. A bright laugh leaves his chest as she pokes it, his head tilting before he repeats her choice of words with some amusement.  
  
"Dairy-ann?" He chuckles again and then shakes his head, trying to get a word as she reminded him of that entirely accidental fire.  
  
"The stables needed remodeling anyways and they were empty," he nodded, taking her stand as he stood before adding mostly teasingly, "and you did. Distract me, that is."  
  
He smiled again, "Actually the theoretic puzzle began as an IQ test I developed, and now I'm fully convinced he could easily test out of secondary if he wanted to. So if he really wants to travel, well, ma would kick me, you, Al, then me again, then Al again if he actually dropped out instead of completed it."  
  
Lyndsi has to admit to a certain relief as he takes her poking and prodding in stride. Between the two of them had always been an affectionate camaraderie, and yet she knows that with what he went through..the fact he didn't cringe at her casual touch spoke volumes to how much he trusts her. Determined to prove worthy of the trust, she let's him take her hand again once he's stood in front of her and says lightly enough, "Yes, dairy-ann, I know those big brains of yours might have preferred 'gluteus maximus' but the rest of us prefer generalities and you know,... euphemisms."  
  
What started haughty winds up cheeky before fading to ridiculousness and Lyndsi sighs at herself. As if any Brackner man didn't know the language of euphemisms. Pah!   
  
Then Lyndsi blinks.  
  
"You actually think he should test out?" She ventures hesitantly, "It's not just the grades...his friends all are still in school...except Eliza, that is, obviously," that poor girl, "...and just, you know, him and Hols all over the world? I am way too young to be a grandmother."  
  
"No shockingly enough, dairy-ann sounds better than gluteus maximus, but only marginally so," he informed her with a cheeky smile that matched hers as he laced their fingers together and started walking leisurely out of the dining room.  
  
"No," he replied, "I'll always be glad that I chose not to test out but I would like to know that he's considered all his options thoroughly." It's not like Harper could forbid him from going. His mother would say yes, that's exactly what he could do, but Harper knew better. Alcott might resent him trying to tell him what to do after so many years, not to mention when you took in to account that Harper's last order to his son was for him to hide behind a bookshelf. That could be a trigger as much as those pictures had been for him.  
  
He chuckled at the last point, "I wager there's the same chance of that no matter where they are, meaning not that big a chance, I wouldn't worry about it." And he didn't just say that because werewolves with children were uncommon, though yes that was partly it.  
  
"Of course I want him here, and not traveling the world with his girlfriend...I've spoken with Hols about it too and who knows, maybe she's not ready to leave the country either. But I wouldn't know how to go about asking him to stay, especially because it feels so selfish and it's not as if it's just some flight of fancy here. Holly Rae has expressed believing it's her life mission. She's got big plans, and I don't think Alcott wants to be left behind.  
  
Or," Harper wiped his mouth, admitting with a chuckle, "maybe, I, don't want to be left behind."  
  
As they left the dining room, Lyndsi found herself naturally cruising the two of them towards the game room, with a thought to start a fire at the back of her mind. Maybe she can ask Harper to do that. He wasn't going to start feeling masculine until he did manly things, yeah? And building a fire was sufficiently manly, and so far she hadn't noticed any triggers for him with flames...  
  
Sidetracked with her own thoughts as she frees a hand to go and open the curtains on the wide-glass windows and doors (all shut because of the snow, but never locked), she listens and feels herself stall tugging the cords. Swallowing, Lyndsi nods absently as she hides a sigh in the tartan drape. Her smile is back, if soft, when she looks back to him.   
  
"He might be...almost sixteen," she says, patient and trying to act as if it wasn't sad to think she has to teach him what his son was like, "but he likes being treated just like an adult. Man of the house, actually." Her lips twitch up as she looks at the fireplace, adding as if an after thought, "Speaking of which, mind lighting a fire?"  
  
She waits with her hands slipping around the couch back before she continues on.  
  
"Anyway--you just have to tell him...that, really. He'll respect that you respect him enough to tell the truth." Her smile flicks up before she adds, "And I'm not going anywhere, so."  
  
Harper nodded, unsurprised that it was such and he might have deduced as much from one interaction and they'd had many more. Not to mention it was common absent a male figure, then again, that wasn't entirely accurate. Obviously, it was a prickly train of thought to say the least, so he left it.  
  
"Sure," Harper nodded, moving to the fireplace and rolling up his sleeves up to his elbows, crouching to pick some firewood from the bin and place them inside.  
  
"Well when you put it like that you make it sound so easy," he chuckled and then looked over his shoulder to smile at her seemingly idle addition.  
  
"It's the very thing that keeps me going."  
  
Smile picking up as she considers him, crouching there and building the fire, from here the scars honestly just make him look even more rugged and handsome in her view. One of these days she'll convince him of it (Lyndsi always gets what she wants, see).   
  
She chuckles. "It is that easy, Mr. Genius. Talk to your son." The light way she says it might not be honestly reflected in her face, all soft and calm as she looks knowing and understanding as best she can manage. After all these years, it has to be strange for him, having this...grown up man replacing an over energetic six year old. Pictures of them not. But surely it was better than when their son thought he had no father, right?   
  
Then her smile flutters up, even as she locks gaze with him and says wholeheartedly, "You have a lot more than that, husband, but you'll always have me."   
  
Going to open them a bottle of red wine as he builds the fire, she pops the cork out with a finger snap, then pushes the bottle back to aerate. Her words stay soft and as casual as possible.  
  
"He listens to you more than me, you know. Always has. Well, I say always, I mean once he stopped breast-feeding, Ma became irrelevant."   
  
She was teasing. (Mostly.)   
  
Well the problem with that was talking in general. With Lyndsi and Al and other family it was easier, but he had to remember when he was speaking that not everyone wanted something from him and he had to remember those subjects which were appropriate for day to day conversation. Thankfully, he hadn't been subjected to much idle chatter or small talk. Then again he had never been good at small talk even before...yeah, before.  
  
Standing straight once more, he ignored a simple spark with a snap of his fingers, letting it turn into a flame as naturally as possible.  
  
He turned back to Lyndsi with a chuckle as she teased herself and said, "You could never be irrelevant." Once he reached her again Harper kissed her slowly, pulling away after several moments.  
  
A tiny bit surprised but overwhelmed in delight when she saw the way he looked at her walking near -- the familiar adoration and hunger in eyes on a face she was still getting used to -- Lyndsi slipped her hands into his and leans in to the kiss, letting him lead while she plays with their fingers and responds. Pulling away reluctantly when he does, she chuckles at the words and teases through lips now swollen, "Do me a favor and tell that to your son too."  
  
As much as she was proud and eager to claim Al as theirs, she has to admit to a certain glee when she sees his tiny shiver every time she says 'your son.' He deserved that moment. Just as he deserved to hear 'your wife' in a pleasant context though she's noted a curious absence of it, as if he still doesn't think he's allowed to have one of those.  
  
"And I understand why you don't want to ask him to stay, don't want to seem selfish--but, you just got us back. You get to be selfish, Harper. Get to tell him to do his homework and not stay out drinking all night and to have designated drivers and worry about his health--you get all of that too. Not just the picnics and the ducking the ladies and I's teatime and the physics breaking. You're his *father.* Which, is all he's ever wanted."   
  
Lyndsi kisses his cheek.  
  
Tugging gently towards the couch without actually taking a sip, she smiles as she says, "Thanks for the fire too."


	11. Be Careful What You Wish For

When she first saw him, at the end of a Ministry hall that suddenly seemed shorter only than a certain wall in China, Lyndsea had a moment to pretend she didn't. He hadn't seen her. His hand was on the shoulder of Stewart's grandmother, mid-word of helping her get into the elevator (because of course that would be what Max was doing when she saw him again, helping the elderly). Of course he would. There should be a sick child on his back too he just rescued from a fire and somehow a home for the poor he was building all stuffed together on the elevator--  
  
"Lyndsea?"  
  
Moment over, apparently. Lyndsi was glad of that, though. She'd hate to think she was avoiding him actively on top of all her other crimes against him.   
  
"Max! ...you got a minute?"  
  
Turning, she smiles, gesturing abruptly to the nearest room. The only thing that was going to make this more awkward, was the idea of talking to him cornered in the hallway, where anyone could walk by and everyone in the world was curious.   
  
Point of fact, she closes the door on a green, floating quill that had been following her.   
  
"One second-" She huffs, tugging the squeaking quill through the crack and stepping on it with a cerulean heel. Then she tossed it out the window "-there."   
  
Max's eyes followed the floating feather before he remarked with geniality she probably doesn't deserve.   
  
"Reporters bugging you?"  
  
"I found an audio recorder in my hairdryer this morning." Lyndsi retorts as she jumps to slide the window shut. It sticks halfway and she has to jump on it three times while Max laughed about the perspecacity of paparazzi. He knew better than to offer her help doing that.   
  
"Well, hey." Max lifts a hand and shrugs, "you can't blame them for wanting to report happy news for once. It is like a soldier coming back from war, a'ight?"  
  
Lyndsi huffs, leaning forward towards the window as she examines the reflection and carefully licks a fingertip before gluing a stray strand behind her ear. (Max also knew better than to comment on the fact it hopped right back to freedom when she spun towards him.)  
  
"Exactly, a soldier who has done bloody enough for them without prying into our private business."  
  
"Mm," Max said.  
  
"He gave nine and a half years of his life already, fought for them, isn't that enough? Don't you think he deserves a little damn courtesy and respect?"  
  
"True," Max said.  
  
"Especially as I'm sure you know perfectly well it isn't the happy reunion they want anyway, it's the soap opera."  
  
"I do know that," Max said. Lyndsi was still huffing -- fuming, actually, against the window, arms folded on her chest when she opens her mouth again, only to be cut off by another curt statement as Max nods without looking at her. "Perfectly well."  
  
There's a pause. Lyndsi flicks her eyes up to him.   
  
"They're following you too?" All the anger was gone from Lyndsi's quiet observation. Even though she phrases it as a question, she didn't need an answer, and his nod in response was politely conciliatory. Right, she thinks, because of course that was where the soap opera was, of course it didn't take tabloids long to recognize that Max had not only moved out the moment Harper came home, but hadn't been by the house since. For the press that decried her as an ice queen for years, how hard were the pieces to put together? It's not like their story was *original.*   
  
"Have you talke--"  
  
"Give me more credit than that, Lynds." Max's narrow eyes and tight, pursed lips remind her how their puppy looked when a newborn hippogriff had whacked him (accidentally). She furrows her brows in response, her words still quiet.   
  
"I was going to ask if you talked about it to Zoe." Lyndsi's words might have been an apology. "I figure they must be stalking her too."  
  
Max let's out an awkward, heavy 'oh' with his sigh and then moves away from the door, wandering towards the conference chairs. It seems whatever force takes him forwards is losing a war against a ten foot forcefield around her, as he stops moving that far back and sits instead. After a pause where all she hears is the squeaky, rolling chair up to the table, he jerks his head in another nod.  
  
"Yeah, talked about it a little. But pft, Zo's already threatened her neighbors if they sell the story - I almost feel sorry for them, really."  
  
Lyndsi giggled, and nodded. Hand floating up to trap the loose strand behind her ear again, she leans cautiously off the window. And seriously, does he have a restraining order he forgot to tell her about? The moment she takes a step forward, his chair scoots the same back.   
  
Max seemed to notice what he did as her eyes fall back to the floor. It's written all over his stupidly too-expressive Brackner face -- and no, Lyndsi doesn't have to be looking at it to know that. Sighing, obviously perturbed by his own stiffness, Max scoots closer to the table without a word. The journey from a foot back seems to traverse ten times the length, judging by when his arms slip back over the wood.   
  
She sits down across slash diagonally next to him. Her heels shuffle. Then she says, "It is like he's a soldier back from war though. That's exactly it."  
  
Max seems to wait on bated breath and chewed up lips before he nods and rubs over his tan brow hard - like he wants to dig into his skull with his finger tips, if that would fix it.   
  
"I want to ask how he is." Max's words seem exhaustive in the dim little conference room. "I do, I want to know, I should know, but I don't want to impose, and I--"  
  
"You're not imposing." Lyndsi cuts in, shaking her head. Max scoffs.  
  
"If he knew I was even in the same room with you, Lynds--"  
  
"Stop." She begs, and it's so unlike her that Max does exactly what she says. Ha! As if that's new.   
  
Her nails rap against the tabletop, sharp, filed, painted blue. Like her eyes, Max thinks. Then he thinks he shouldn't think those things about Lynds anymore -- about his brother's wife.   
  
"I know," she says softer, eyes meeting his now too as she pulls her nails under her arms, folds them on the table, hides them from sight. "He's angry, and he has a right to be, and that's why I haven't called, but the truth is," she lowers her voice further, as if ashamed, "I want to ask how you are too, Max."  
  
"I'm fine," Max insists, only the vehemence in his voice isn't quite heard over Lyndsi's mutter, as she said exactly what he did, just in an more feminine voice. He blinks at her mock, repeats like a child, "I *am*," and then both of them find themselves laughing almost too hard -- too fast, too much and yet it feels so natural and pleasant and easy they don't dare stop. Later, Lyndsi will think about how that had always been the trouble between them -- how that was the reason for their very awkwardness now, but she won't invite the stiffness back in the air.   
  
Wiping at her eyes as they shake it off, she finally says back, "Oh Max, no you aren't. And I'm not, and he's not, and we all know it and you know except for one part I don't understand at all why we're letting this strain us further, pull us all apart when we need the support, I don't understand."  
  
"I don't either," Max shrugs with a smirk. "Except for one part."  
  
"Right. The part where..."  
  
"You understand it completely?"  
  
"...Yes," Lyndsi smirks too, digging an eyelash out and flicking it away from her. She echoes. "Except for the fact I understand completely I don't understand at all."  
  
Max laughs again and then leans over the table as he looks at her, cocks his head in a way she knows too well and props his hand under his chin. It might be sad, but she's glad she knows his smile is genuine. The crinkles at the edges of his haunted eyes remind her of that, and how easy this used to be.  
  
"You are glad he's home though." Max says first, and he won't be hurt by the soft joy that came into her eyes at the mere thought, he won't be.   
  
"Yes." Lyndsi has an ethereal quality to her for a second, a look on her face like she can't quite believe it. "Glad isn't a bright enough word but--but no word is right so, it'll do."  
  
Max looks at her for a moment, uncertain why that made him angry. He thinks: Lynds learned how to settle for 'close enough' and 'It'll do' a long time ago -- and then he knows why it did. Shutting his eyes for a moment, he asked, "But?"  
  
Lyndsi fumbles for the word long enough he thinks she might be just glaring at him and waiting for him to open his eyes. Max doesn't. Not this time, he wasn't coming as she calls this time.   
  
"But it's exhausting."   
  
That makes him open his eyes, brow and face crumpled in confusion as he takes her in. Lyndsea had pulled the rolling chair all the way up, slipped out of her heels to tuck her heels under her and lay against the round business table. It's her hair he fixates on -- the loose strand free from her ear finally -- and then her eyes. Lyndsea could keep her emotions out of every part of her being except her eyes, but only to those who knew what to look for.   
  
She does look tired.  
  
"Exhausting?" He echoes in confusion.  
  
"Wanting to know how I can help him, what I can *do* for him and just being...unable to help! That and...and wanting to talk about all of it, it's like I *need* someone to talk to about how hard this is but--"  
  
"How about your husband, Lynds?"  
  
Max's tone is biting and it calls her gaze up from her folded hands on the blue-grey marble. When her nails peel back, he sees red imprints on her palm and almost feels remorse. Almost.   
  
"I do talk to him." Lyndsea says, quiet and steady on him, "I do, Max. I have no secrets from him, and I don't want to, but that doesn't mean I have to tell him everything I think."  
  
Max bites down hard on his tongue, trying to think if he even meant it like that because...he doesn't mean that she was manipulating his brother, he knows he didn't mean that.   
  
"Like I said before. Harper's been burdened enough. He...deserves more courtesy than to hear some of what I think."  
  
"Like what?" Max asks, voice still sharp, only now he thinks it's a defense, like he was hoisting up barbed wire that wasn't going to keep anything out because Lyndsea always carries steel wire-cutters.  
  
She flinches, shaking her head.  
  
"I don't want to burden you either Max, I burdened you enough--"  
  
"Lyndsea."   
  
"I did, Max, and I owe you an apology for...God, I don't know even where to start-"  
  
"It took both of us." Max said firmly, even if he felt better to hear the half apology. Maybe he just doesn't know where even he would want her to start, maybe he still wanted to help her feel better too much but either way he accepts the thought that counted most of all. Leaning forward he repeats, "You aren't burdening me, Lynds--things you think like what?"  
  
"Like I miss talking to you."  
  
Max blinks.  
  
It seems to give Lyndsi more resolve, her bark more bite as she echoes, "Like I miss talking to you and I miss having you in the house and sometimes I'm angry that he threw his own brother out and yet isn't mad at me. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's not mad at me, but if he can forgive me, he should forgive you. I wasn't seduced, I don't need protecting, an--"  
  
Max laughs an incredulous little chuckle too quickly to even begin taking it back as she narrows her eyes at him and huffs, "What's so funny?!"  
  
"Noth--"  
  
"Max--!" Lord, her voice still could get shrill. (He doesn't miss that.)  
  
"You weren't seduced." His words falter in the air. Eyes wide open and mouth still twitching as if he's barely holding back laughter, he clarifies calmly, "No, you weren't: I was."   
  
It's Lyndsea's turn to blink, laugh once and fall forward against the table again. She hits so hard the rollers squeak and she spins halfway around before her stomach stops the chair's final quarter revolution. Her grin sheepish, she seems triumphant as she nods twice, briskly.  
  
"Exactly though: you were."  
  
Max smiles, glad she stopped shouting anyway before saying plainly, "Harper knows that."  
  
Her triumph falls away. Shoulders slumping forward a little more, she waits a moment before responding as if afraid, "What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean my bloody brother knows every inch of you Lynds, and knows me pretty damn well too -- don't tell him I said that, I will never admit that," (Lyndsi rolls her eyes), "-- and he knows exactly who led who, but as he for some reason seems to have forgotten how madly in love with him you are, it's much easier to be mad solely at me. Like you said, he's angry, he has a right to be, and he deserves a little courtesy so while we're on the subject Lynds -- he didn't throw me out. Maybe I should have let him do that, maybe he'd feel better if he got to do that I don't know but I left voluntarily and I haven't called or come by of my own accord. I'm not shoving myself in his face, he deserves better than that."   
  
Lyndsea listened apparently hard (judging by her face), her hands folding and unfolding, shoulders slumping forward further before she finds herself just nodding along in agreement and understanding. Max needed to leave on his own for his own sake, she realized, or else he'd be left wondering if he'd wanted to stay. She's glad to know he didn't want to as well. The chance of it being otherwise...just, no, they couldn't handle that.  
  
But she knew something else too.  
  
Flicking her eyes up she says determined, shoulders square, "He needs his brother too."   
  
That shut an incredulous Max up, his words spluttering away, gaze falling to his own fingers. She continued as if given a green light to go ahead.   
  
"When I first told him." Her jaw was tense; his does the same clench as if they mirror each other, "he said guessed. Like, years ago. And then he just...he said "with my brother?" like he couldn't believe it, and like he was pleading to have it be anyone else because he'd made up his mind to hate whoever it was and blame everything one way so he didn't have to be mad at me --"  
  
"You say this like he hasn't succeeded at exactly that," Max said spuriously, rubbing his shut eyes.  
  
"I do, don't I?" Lyndsea has that infuriatingly know-it-all tone for a moment and he wrinkles his nose. No. No, he did not want to come to the conclusion on his own, no he did not want to be led there, he wasn't ten years old and this was complicated enough without being treated like he wasn't mature enough to handle the truth that his brother hated him. (The thought clenches in his chest.)  
  
"Lyndsea--," Max starts, but fails more than that and slides back in the chair. It rolls around the table to be closer to the window. Setting his sights on a low office directly across the way, he waits until she interrupts.  
  
"He doesn't want to admit it yet." She allows quietly, adding, "He doesn't want to admit he's not going to be instantly adjusted yet," almost under her breath drily and hopelessly, "but he does need his brother too. He just... needs to find a way to let you be that again, instead of..."  
  
"The guy who screwed his wife while he was being flayed alive?"  
  
Lyndsi doesn't even try not to flinch (but she wonders at how calmly Max said that, like it was all business). Throat dry, she takes a moment to swallow before speaking through a nod.  
  
"Yes, basically."  
  
"Basically."  
  
Max echoing her phrasing has them both chuckling reluctantly again, but this time it's a calming kind of laugh, sweetly offered as if a consolation prize for everything they ever wagered.   
  
"Tell me you'll be there for him." Lyndsea said suddenly, her voice soft but ringing, like she struck a bell in the air. It frightens Max a moment, his glance over her exhausted state searching, like he thinks she's telling him she wasn't sure she could stay. Bristling with the thought, she waves her hand in the air and shakes her head.  
  
"Don't look at me like that; I'm not going anywhere. But I'm not the one he's determined to make a punching bag and I'm saying I understand why you haven't been volunteering yourself ..."  
  
"--for more verbal beatings?" Max supplies sardonic, dry, mouth twisted.   
  
"Yes." She whispered. "I don't think you should just take it either, Max -"  
  
"You shouldn't either, Lynds." He insists softly, finally reaching over to take her hand and squeeze, gently, once. She stiffens as he does and then seems to relax instinctively in the same breath. Her eyes on the floor tell him he's right.  
  
"You thought he was gone. Lyndsea,breathe. Of course I'm going to be there if he ever reaches out again. He's my big brother. I always wanted him back, and I never meant to hurt him. Just like you aren't to blame for all he went through, and I always knew you really wanted him."  
  
Lyndsea flicks her eyes up, smirk hopeless and sad.  
  
"You did?" She whispers, and this time Max is sure it's an apology. He smirks back and nods, easily able to pretend it didn't hurt this time.   
  
"Course I knew that," Max said, earnest until Lyndsea sits up straighter and squeezes his hand back.   
  
She offers, "Be careful what you wish for, huh?"  
  
"Our problem wasn't that we wished for it." Max laughs quietly as she slipped away watches her slide her heels back on. Once she's fixed the heel, she brings her gaze back up to him to wait until he finished his thought. It takes Max a minute, because for some reason this seemed the hardest to actually get out of his throat.  
  
"Our problem was we didn't really believe it could happen." Max said finally, zipping his jacket back up. She seems to let that settle for a long moment before nodding and standing up with understanding cold and hot in her bones. His smile stays sad and steady as he stands too, ignoring that he waited for her to do that. "So we didn't act like it could."  
  
Lyndsi slips her purse back on her shoulder, the loose hair back behind her ear before she nods at him.  
  
"I'm sorry," she said, genuinely, and small. Max screws his eyebrows up and then just accepts it, knows he's not going to get anything else and maybe it was all he should get anyway because she was right that Harper was the most grieved.   
  
"Yeah. And Lynds? I miss talking to you too."  
  
She screws her mouth up in what he knows is the ice queen version of a smile when she's holding back tears.   
  
"But," and he says it firmly, "if you want to talk, I need to know you're going to tell Harper we did. I'm not going to have it look like --"  
  
"I will." Lyndsea promises, her hand tight on her purse as she nods, feeling the glimmer of hope in her chest fizz out at the thought. "But I'm not going to throw it in his face either, Max. Harper...needs to be the center of this, he needs to be, because he is and he hasn't just forgotten how much *I* love him."  
  
Max shuts his eyes while he nods, and when he opens them again, Lyndsea's already left.


	12. Contradictions

The forest at night was a familiar place for Hols. Long before she had begun making her monthly trips during the full moon, Hols had stolen away under the cover of nightfall to walk among one of the most dangerous places on Earth. The excitement mixed with the fear of never really knowing what was out there gave her one purpose: survival. Nothing else mattered, everything else was swept away. That same instinct rushed through her veins now as she ran for    her life.  
  
Her bare feet smashed against the ground repeatedly with her long strides. Her lower legs and the bottom of her nightgown were caked with mud    and dirt as she ran and stumbled. It was deep in the woods, the trees were too close together to allow any light from the moon or stars to guide her way. She avoided some roots, but tripped over others, and never stopped moving.  
  
Her heart was close to beating out of her chest, her breathing heavy from running for what felt like hours. Her long honey-brown hair flew behind her as    she ran, getting tangled in twigs and branches, her cotton nightgown that she wore on warmer evenings was covered in rips. Ants and bugs bit at her calves, spurring her faster in an attempt to get away.  
  
Hols was being chased. Hols was being hunted. The lioness, a fierce predator at the too of the chain was nowhere to be found. She was prey tonight, as a snarl behind her reminder her of it. No amount of running was going to change that. Running was for the weak, for those too afraid to fight back, or too incapable. This wasn't Hols.  
  
She came to a halt, stopped running, and turned around. Immediately, her hunter was on her. Slamming her back against a tree trunk, a large around curled around her throat, gripping it firm as her chest rose up and down fighting for more air to be allowed into her lungs, pressing against the man's chest with each exhale.  
  
He brought his hand down from her neck in a swift motion and instead took her breath by crashing his mouth against hers. The kiss was an attack, a battle, their tongues serving as lances, their teeth as shields as they fought to bring the other to submission. Her hands raised to his scalp, grabbing at short hair and tugging backwards. He didn't move an inch, and if it weren't for the way he bit down on her bottom lip in retribution, she might have thought that he hadn't felt it. Hissing, she knew he had drawn blood. His mouth took her lip and sucked on it, cleaning the blood off the small break.  
  
Her fingers grabbed at his shirt, pulling it upwards and out of the way, the curve of his back being revealed to her, then the dip. She counted each vertebra as she saw it before he pulled back to throw away his shirt entirely and came back, taking the same action towards her nightgown. It ripped right down the middle, exposing her completely to the cool breeze and then to his even colder skin as he pushed what was left of the fabric off her shoulders and pressed her against his chest and the tree.  
  
The wood of the tree dug and scratched  painfully into her back, but she was undeterred as her hands slipped between their bodies and reached his trousers. Unfastening the button as dexterously as was usual for her, she tugged the trousers as down as her arms     allowed it, and then brought her feet up to finish pushing them down. The mud on her feet stained the alabaster skin of his legs and then of his lower back as he hoisted her up, her legs wrapping around his waist.  
  
She pulled away from his mouth with a pop, his own continued down to her neck, a shiver running down her spine and a weight dropping in her gut as she knew what to expect. Nails digging into his shoulders as he ground his hardness against her, her eyes widened into saucers, gasping as his thrusted in, his fangs breaking her skin not a moment after.  
  
Locked between his chest and the tree, Hols struggled to move. Warm blood trickled down her back as she opened several cuts down her back with each movement, needy for a harder pace. Quick gasps kept leaving her mouth as he continued to drink from her, each thrust harder than the one before. Sweat, all her own, ran between their bodies, her breasts slid against the soft hairs of his chest.  
  
As her head turned instinctively, the moan that had been caused by his pelvis grinding against her clit turned into a whimper as his fangs, still dug into her neck ripped across when she moved. Blood now mixed with sweat as it flowed down her neck and chest. With a growl, the vampire pulled back, his face     both monstrous and beautiful. His lips stained with blood, he followed the trail with his tongue, drinking up the blood and sweat while holding her waist so she wouldn't move. She gasped as a pink tongue circled a stiff bud before taking it completely in his mouth, the other receiving the same treatment     until her chest was clean.  
  
Tugging at his hair again, she pulled him back to her mouth, tasting the metallic blood on his tongue as he finally started moving at the pace she wanted. Hard and unrelenting, with each thrust she scratched the tree further, splinters digging into her back. Sharp gasps and moans, and wet slaps filled her ears until she was deafened with them. Nails scratched down his arms, drawing blood only for a moment before the scratched close and the red faded so she did it a again and again, repeatedly until the red stopped fading and she had marked him for more than just a brief second.  
  
She grew more desperate as she felt herself getting closer and closer to the edge. She took his hand from her waist with her own; he didn't need to be guided to know where she wanted it. He didn't flick her pleasure, or teased it. Using two fingers he rubbed it in small, quick circles, until the friction became unbearable. She came with a scream as he sank his fangs in again, this time at her chest. He spent himself four thrusts after, and licked her wounds clean again.  
  
Pulling out, he set her back on the ground, her legs wobbling as she tried to stand upright again. Turning her around, his arms wrapped around her waist again as he licked the blood off her back. Deliberate and slowly, he tongued every scratch and rash, sucked out every splinter. Reaching her shoulder he bit down with his blunt teeth before he kissed it.  
  
"Until next time," he kissed her neck again, and before she blinked, Marcus Ellwood was gone.  
  
And Hols woke up.  
  
Alcott rolls over with a murmured, happy grunt and asks through a smirk as the back of his hands caress her bare shoulder, "Dreaming about me?"  
  
Hols startles, confused and slightly panicked (not to mention oddly sore). She rubbed at her eyes immediately as she blinked repeatedly, trying to see what was around her. No forest, no mud or blood caked all over here, no vampire.  
  
Leaning her head back into a pillow with a sigh, she murmured to herself "just a dream" before tilting her head to look at Al, only now processing his question. She chuckled and moved her hair to one side (checking her neck for puncture wounds as she did).  
  
"And what makes you think that?" She smiled before teasing, "Not enough I have you in my waking thoughts, driving me insane, now I have to put up with you in my sleep to?"   
  
Lazy and proud, Alcott turns the corner of his lips up as he glances down. The covers were a mess around her feet, strewn across her chest, but he was looking directly in between. Forefinger tapping his nose, he glances back to her.  
  
"Not much a wolf won't smell, luv."   
  
Oh for bloody's sake. She chuckled once and then smirked, nodding as she understood. There was no privacy with a werewolf. He could hear her heartbeat, her breathing, smell when she was aroused or fearful- no privacy. Thankfully, she was an open person. Somewhat. With him, at least.  
  
She sighed again and then shook her head slightly, to finally answer his question directly if not aloud. How exactly did one go about revealing a dream like that to your boyfriend?  
  
Despite the tease and gorgeous smirk that appeared on Hols face, Alcott's ear naturally twitches up. Wait, he thinks, listening without being able to help it to the rapid heartbeat trying to settle itself--that wasn't just arousal. Wildness in his girl's eyes was pretty par for course, but Alcott disdains of golf. Something else was up. Face narrowing, he straightens in his bed. Adjusting the pillow beneath her as she scrubs at her neck, he moves his hand to cup it herself. Don't, his fingers say, you're close to peeling your skin off.   
  
"What is it?"  
  
She lets her hand fall down from her neck as he cups it, exhaling again and then licking her dry lips to explain.  
  
"The dream was about the vampire that fed me his blood to heal me. Marcus." She thought the blood should have already left her system, but there were talks of what could happened when a normal human drank vampire blood. When he fed her it, it wasn't only to heal her like he promised, but to hold over her the fact that were she to die with it in her system, she would come back as one of them.  
  
Telling him that, and her apparent smell of arousal, it wasn't difficult to put two and two together to figure out exactly what the dream was about.   
  
His thumb lifts to her lips, parting them as his eyes narrow considering. Alcott might have spent half his life wanting some of his father's genius, but when you put his distaste for the subject alongside the natural disgust of vampires (couldn't help it, in his blood)--he wished for ignorance.   
  
Running the thumb back over her jaw and with an awkward 'woah' on his oh-shaped lips he cocks his chin up, then back down in an excruciatingly slow nod. Yeah. So. She was dreaming about--  
  
"Gross."  
  
"Yeah," was all she said after a chuckle at his very eloquent declaration of the disgust. She took no insult from it, she wasn't that petty. Besides, she knew it was his natural aversion to vampires in general now, as well as the fact that Marcus was a manipulative bastard, and that was from twenty minutes with him.  
  
He wished she hadn't told him. Then he realizes he was wishing actively for his girlfriend to lie to him and reconsiders. Right, counterproductive, yeah fine but, did he really need that image? Cough, pay no attention to the wolf ten seconds ago bragging about his abilities.   
  
"...I knew I should have asked Daniella more." He frowns, taking his hand back and then rubbing his own lips, turning it over in his mind. Her well-being would have to come first.   
  
"You all right?"  
  
Hols nodded, "It was just a dream." A very vivid dream. Worst of all, it hadn't been unpleasant. But still, only a dream and given that she didn't have Nadia's gift, she doubted it was prophetic.  
  
"I had one about you," she said instead to get his mind off it. She smirked as she traced a figure right on his chest with a finger.  
  
"Just the one?" Alcott quips, still turning over the phrase 'just a dream' in his ear. He didn't like it, he decided. Sounded too much like a certain river in Egypt.   
  
Hols shot him a look, slapped his chest with the hand that had been previously caressing it and replied, "yes, just the one. You were shagging me well enough in real life soon after, so." Then her nail returned to its trailing along his smooth chest.  
  
"Last year, back when we still hated each other. I couldn't look you in the eye for a week." She chuckled, not that she'd been very keen to look him in the eye anyways unless she was cursing him or at him.  
  
Stomach grumbling with his displeasure, Alcott stills, probably from the fact even as he frowns he enjoys her nail trailing across his toned chest. Zen-like with the cognitive dissonance of her remark, he exhales in a short burst. Then he does it again. He keeps doing it until it sounds like he was laughing. With a slow smile, he points out, "You do realize less than a year later you're in bed with me? Not a very encouraging stat."  
  
He'd always hated statistics anyway. He and Hols disproved all of them, as they fucking should.   
  
"Alcott Brackner, feeling threatened by a dream? A *vampire* in a dream?" Hols smirked, not bothering to even take his comment on the statistics seriously. She wasn't in his bed a year later because he'd fucked her in a dream better than half of her actual lovers. For the interest of not stroking his ego further however, she'd keep that to herself.  
  
"Actually," he adjusts on his propped up pillow, watching her nail with interest and then cocking an eyebrow back up, "dreams are rarely meaningless. Or ever 100% meaningful, you know, except for Seers."  
  
Hols looks down briefly, finding herself already agreeing with that even if she didn't like it.  
  
Smirking as he looks at her, his finger draws through the air while he continues to speak. The other hand he props behind his head to give him a better view. Goddamn, this chica all right? Breathtaking even when she tells him she had a wet dream about a psychotic vampire while in his bed. Now just how was that fair?  
  
"Something I was always interested in." He winks at her, whispering under his breath, teasing because that makes it much easier, "I live for contradictions."   
  
Looking back up, she smiles at him again and nodded.  
  
"You are the king of contradictions," she chuckled again and licked her lips.  
  
"Prince," he counters, smile softening. Neck cocking, his head hits the headboard, comfortable and warm as he offers, "King's mi padre."   
  
Was he looking for excuses to mention his father was home? Was the Silver Spears dueling club infamous for only using Aspen wands?   
  
(That's a yes.)  
  
"As long as you don't expect me to call you 'your grace'," she teased, her smile soft and wide as she saw how happy Al got every time he found an excuse to mention his father was alive.  
  
"God, no." Alcott stuck his tongue out, "That'd make me sound like some posh wanker."  
  
"Well I'm no prophet. And I doubt Nadia would want to help me assign meaning to this particular dream," she scoffed and shook her head slowly. She'd rather it was meaningless of course, but had little knowledge or what it could actually be. An expert in magical creatures she would soon be, but vampires didn't belong in that category.  
  
"Unless Nadia's the one having the dream, doesn't matter really," Alcott was quick to say, before his hand came down, seizes her wrist. Hoisting up with a smile on his face, all at once he's seated her on top of him.   
  
"Much better," he murmurs, playful.Hands settling on her hips, one circles, massaging around the sharp bone and contemplates the glory of her tan, smooth skin. See, now, *this* was something to dream about.   
  
Her hand stilled but not on her own accord. With a tug she moved to sit on his stomach. Smirking down at him, she moved her hair behind her, though a few strands still lingered to give him an unblocked view. She had very little shame left.  
  
"And by the way," he thumbs against the bone, eyes hooded as he looks up at her, "I wish I was just that easily threatened."  
  
Her hand went back to his chest, using her fingers to paw at it like a cat would a mouse. She kept watching him, only slightly distracted by his fingers on her waist and listened to him.  
  
"But," and he sighs, looking back down her front as it tends to have that calming, transformative effect on him, "I caught Dani snooping through some of my dad's old research books and well," he frowns, "I was asking her about glamouring away or healing dark magic scars since apparently," he smacks with the flat of his palm, "my childhood nan has a whole dark side to her?" fine, maybe he was a little threatened, maybe he just liked making her jealous.   
  
An old baby sitter with an apparent dark side, and that only seemed to make him cheerier. Prince of contradictions indeed.  
  
"The nanny fantasy, luv, really?" She teased briefly after the little smack, shaking her head. Her hands stilled however as Alcott reached the end of his explanation.  
  
"I have no regrets," Alcott teased. But his smirk is strained as his own heart skips with the end of his sentence.   
  
"But Dani said vampires don't often heal because the blood can cause a connection."   
  
"What kind of connection?" She asked warily. Hols had heard of the triple x rated blood-induced dreams before, but she never heard of a 'connection'. Then again her interactions with vampires had been a nil before Marcus. If she had this vampire digging around in her head...  
  
"Can we break it?"  
  
Alcott pauses his hand as his face starts to screw up with sheepishness before he admits, "Er, I might not have asked that?"  
  
"You might have been too busy checking your old nanny out to worry about me having a connection to a centuries old vampire?" She retorted in response, digging a nail into him playfully, before 'retracting her claws' to show that she 'forgave his one-track mind'. Contrarily, there was more than one track in his mind right now; he had loads to worry and think about with his father and Eliza back alone without adding her date-with-a-vampire into the mix.  
  
Look, he'd been trying to understand why she had a book that had Satanic symbols covering the front of it, and it was hugged to her chest. It was distracting. Alcott was only human. Mostly. Okay, he was only a wolf, both with fur and without, but he liked it that way and so did Hols. Hand lifting from her thigh to her shoulder to rub reassuringly, he adds quickly, "Because she just was saying it was why vamp blood, considering it's incredible restorative power, was still rarely used as such. Rarely, not never, so I'm sure we can ask. As for the kind..."  
  
He screws up, remembering the afternoon. Daniella had stalked up behind him in those fabulous blue heels that she made smack their hard wood (he swore she'd been playing the childhood game of touching a carpet meant death because it was 'lava'), hugged him, and then he'd seen the books.   
  
"I think she said," and speaking of distraction with a capital D: this lingerie-clad Spanish goddess, "...that it depends on how much blood plus how bad the injuries are, and if the vampire is aware of it or not but--oh, oh, right. So, it's a variation of newborns and their maker. That's strong, because the newborn would have had to die and come back, so talk about a lot of blood. But on the other hand, now they're the same species, same level of power. With humans, it can be like a...tether, to them, like permanent Legilmency. Ish."  
  
He bites down on his tongue, feeling anger suddenly threaten to swell in his chest and knowing it was...dangerous, for him to give in to that. Transforming into a wolf at the crack of dawn just seemed a bit preemptive and like a lot of effort. Actually, was the sun even up? Nope.   
  
Hols snorted immediately, thinking to herself she was truly fucked then, apparently in more ways than one. A vampire she wasn't, so at least she didn't have that bond to worry about (but she did smell close to one for a while as apparently even after she came from taking the end of semester exams she still smelled odd, according to Alcott). But she had nearly bled to death; Hols had drank a lot of his blood. And as far as being aware of it?  
  
A shiver ran down her spine as she remembered the three simple words he'd told her in the dream, the only words he had chosen to say: until next time. Hols knew dreamwalking existed, it was mostly considered dark magic, so was her dream really a creation of her own imagination?  
  
"I'm not having my mind permanently open to a sadistic vampire," Hols decided right then with a nod, her face setting.  
  
"That's a relief, dear." Alcott teases, but the look on his face was one of honesty. Though he would never have thought Hols *would* just go along with that in the first place, he supposes it's still nice to hear the finalized, flat statement aloud.  
  
"So it looks like I've got some research to do."  
  
She ignores his snark, focused. If she could have her lioness eyes right now, she would he thinks, minds eye picturing the sharp gold hue irregardless. They're blazoned on his memory; striking to behold. A low growl of approval reverberates through his chest. Hand moving from her shoulder now as his back slides down his pillow, he brings her in to kiss her again, hard.   
  
(Call him possessive if you must.)


	13. Locker Room Talk

"Hey, wai--are you--"  
  
"--going to kick your ass if you don't continue on your merry way, pal?" Chris didn't give the bloke time to ask Harper anything,  "Yes, yes I am."   
  
Bright-eyed smirk flipping his mouth up, Chris follows the quick retreat over the bridge without another word until they're alone again. Dammit, yes Harper has a few scars on his face, does it look like he wants to be bothered about them? Reminded of them? Does it not look like he should be given space? Adjusting his scarf with a scoff (and mentally wincing), Chris lifts his gloved thumb to point -- more like jab -- at their rude interloper.   
  
"That what you were talking about?" His words were chipper even in the cold air, even if they were a little bitter and his eyes sympathetic. Jabbing again, "Cause fuck that guy, mate. He is so not allowed to ruin the first night I get my best mate back."  
  
Adjusting his jacket again, this time he's unbuttoning it to fetch two, ice-cold beers, and the opener. There's a click-gasp in the air as the metal top pops off; steam rolls off as it strikes the air and Chris holds it out to Harper. Only once he's toasted and taken a sip of his own does he mutter, teasing while he waves the bottle, "And yes, yes, I know I interrupted you too, but seriously, it's been nine days. You deserve a night out. And I demand it. I gave you all week to stay in the bedroom with Lyndsea, all right? Even Genius Gods have to rest sometimes."  
  
A fond half smile/half smirk crept to his face as he watched Chris threaten a man if he didn't keep walking without missing a beat. Chris had never been a brawny or burly man, but there was no denying that big mouth. Uncommon in politicians, but more often than not Chris said exactly what he meant to say. Not to mention, Chris was one of the most loyal people Harper had ever met. Again, not a usual trait for a politician, something Harper had frequently teased him about years ago.  
  
"Yeah, something like that," he answered with a nod at the guy who walked away, "at least this one didn't have a camera." It was almost impressive the fact that even while covered as much as physically possible (coat, scarf, gloves, even a hat) he could still be recognized. Harper had never naturally enjoyed being the center of attention, but as he grew he got used to it, it even got to a point where it admittedly felt rather nice, but now he never lost his distaste for it.  
  
"Still as sentimental as always, I see," Harper teased, grabbing the beer and clicking it against Chris' own beer before taking a sip. Truthfully, Harper didn't want a 'night out'. Time with his best friend, sure, especially as this was the beer Chris owed him for being able to get the farm good press during the whole Notre Dame fiasco, but a 'night out'? He would have been fine without it.  
  
Clearing his throat suddenly at Chris' next comment, he was more than content to blame the chill for some growing color to his cheeks, but knew he wouldn't get away with that.  
  
"Yeah that," Harper raised his hand to the back of his neck and cleared his throat again, "hasn't been really...working out, very well."  
  
"Yeah well, if he had, I'd have broken it."  
  
Chris grinned before tossing back another sip. It's not like he was unused to the paparazzi himself, but Harper deserved a little peace, so breaking one of those psychos 900E cameras would have been the least he could do. He could handle the press heat (especially as a decent amount of the population would laud him for it, that didn't hurt).  
  
After leaning against the bridge with his head tilted back, he chuckled to add, "Oh, shut up mate. You've been gone nine and a half years, I've earned the right to be a little sentimental. Admitted," he smirked and shrugged his shoulder, "might have just given it up with that statement."  
  
He turned to put the beer down (even through the glove it was a little cold; at least this way he knows that Harper wouldn't have to be in public with too many people though). About to set it down, it nearly tumbles from his fingertips instead and he has to catch it, coughing back. Blinking at him, he tilts his head and then says, "Come again? What--really?"  
  
Harper didn't doubt that for a second. He could also safely say that he wouldn't mind it either. Lyndsi had already broken a few cameras of the paparazzi that dared to come to close to their home.  
  
"Isn't, ah, drinking two cold beers over the bridge sentimental enough?" Harper joked, but knew perfectly well that he felt the same way. Still, people expected him to be either two things: overly sentimental or constantly aloof. Not one to do what was expected, in fact he actually loathed it, he aimed for the healthy medium. As healthy as he could be, that is.  
  
The surprise in Chris' voice has his remembering how unusual it really was, and he wasn't sure whether it made him feel better about it or worse. Awkward, at the very least, definitely.  
  
"Yeah," Harper nodded with lips pressed together after another sip, "I mean it's not unheard of in post trauma, or so I tell myself, so I don't, you know, feel like a git."   
"Nah mate, I haven't brought up the fact this is where we wound up night of your bachelor's last hurrah yet. Now," he leans over and taps his friend's shoulder once before cupping it and squeezing with a wink, "it's sentimental enough."  
  
See, he was learning! That time he didn't bring up the fact the bachelor party in question was over a decade ago. It wasn't hard to realize Harper was less than thrilled to discuss this-- any of this, actually, as his mate kept talking. Oh, ouch. But...  
  
He couldn't say this was something he ever dealt with before -- er, talking the guy through this, that was. (Look, it happens at least once to every guy, okay? And yes maybe he should be saying this aloud but give him a minute to wrap his mind around it.) He hadn't been the best man at that bachelor's party, after all. Except hey, he knew easily enough why Harper wasn't calling his brother for advice.   
  
"Yeah, yeah--d'aw wait," he exhales and chuckles under his breath trying to push off the awkward feeling, "no, I mean no, you don't have to feel like a git, you're right, it's not unheard of."   
  
He slaps at his thigh and then goes to grab his beer again, taking another brief sip before adding, "It happened to me too? I mean, not that I -- I had difficulty too once, I mean. It happens. What'd Lyndsi say?"  
  
Harper chuckled, nodding and remembering well enough himself. He was so young, both of them were, well relatively, Chris was 8 years older? Something like that, it didn't really matter anyways, because honestly Harper probably looked older at the moment.  
  
"Fun night," he remarked a bit nostalgically, nodding still. It might have also been the first time he had gotten that shit-faced in public and was potentially reminding Chris of all the embarrassing shit that happened so he was happy to move on from that subject especially when he remembered who had actually been in charge of planning the stag night.  
  
Then again, no, they could go back to talking about their bad decisions 18 years ago, they were not nearly as embarrassing as the current situation.  
  
"She's supportive and understanding...sometimes I think it's more trying to be understanding but, can you blame her? I didn't exactly get back in tip-top condition," Harper exhaled, the cold breath visible in the air.  
  
"You got back with a beating heart, mate. I mean, I'd say it's a miracle but that'd downplay how bloody hard you worked."   
  
He took another long sip of the beer as if it had the answers he was looking for (and also because it gave him a longer time to think about it all). Then he lifted his hand to scratch the scarf around the back of his neck and muttered, "But that's irrelevent since the real question is if *you* blame her, innit?"   
  
Chris set the beer down again. His hands clasp the bridge rails and squeeze a little harder as he brings himself around to look Harper in the eye, straight, blatantly ignoring the scars. Then his eyebrow arches.   
  
"Or maybe that's over thinking it a bit." He smirks, lips drawn up (kind of like Harper's are), "Which it sounds like you're doing if you're distinguishing between understanding and trying too hard to be understanding."  
  
Bloody was the exact term, honestly. Somehow he had managed to retain enough of a filter not to say that aloud, for which he was thankful for. Harper already had enough of that mostly piteous look in people's eyes when there were mentions even remotely related to what he had to endure these past nine years.  
  
Harper considered what Chris posited as a possible reason, almost immediately throwing the thought away. Clearly it was touchy enough a subject, no pun intended, if he wasn't even willing to consider it that seriously.   
  
"Yeah," Harper chuckled briefly, noting Chris had a good point, "maybe. I usually don't believe in there being such a thing as -over-thinking but yeah, I have been wishing recently I could turn my brain off."  
  
"Right?" There was a certain amount of relief in his chuckle, as he adds nostalgically himself now, "See, I do know some things." Squeezing the railing again, he considers his own  relaxation as being more from the fact he didn't get to be right around Harper often and used to say that...years and years ago. It was comforting to think some things didn't change. And if he thought that, how must Harper feel?  
  
"Right though, so, if you're thinking about it that much it'll make you anxious and...that makes it really hard to," he pauses, tilts his head, then compromises, "you know. That was my problem." He held a hand to his chest. "I was focused too much on work. You should focus on Lyndsi."  
  
"Age has given you wisdom," Harper teased, chuckling afterwards and looking pensively back over the bridge. As awkward as the subject turned out to be, it still wasn't as awkward as he'd expected it to be.  
  
His lip curling up even further in brief amusement, he finished the sentence for him with the suggestion, "Get hard?"  
  
Harper shook his head briefly, "But I am. I'm focusing on her, remembering what she likes, making sure that she still likes it, that I don't frighten somehow, but I still have that nagging buzz of a thought. What if...she compares me to ah," he clears his throat, using a gloved hand gesture away from him, "yeah, him, and finds me lacking?"  
  
"I never claimed to be eloquent, that's the speechwriter's area." Chris spoke with a laugh as he knows perfectly well how absurd it was to say 'hard to get hard.'   
  
But in any case, it's not his purview at the moment to do more than listen, earnest and attentive. At least, that's what his mother said had been their trouble with his own brother: Chris talked too much and didn't listen to what he had to say. Therapy had done her wonders.   
  
Arching an eyebrow, Chris nods slowly, understanding why that would be an issue for Harper as much as he thinks that his refusal to say Max's name aloud probably was the larger one.   
  
"All right, sure. Though I think by worrying about it you're making the comparison yourself. And maybe you need to remember what ... you like? I mean if it's not...feeling good for you because you're thinking about that..."  
  
Right, this was properly uncomfortable now. Good to know that point could be reached after all. Taking another sip from the beer, one larger than the previous one, it was obvious to him that he hadn't really been thinking about himself, or enjoying it. He wanted Lyndsi to enjoy it.  
  
"I have a difficult time with even the most casual of touches still, and I'm afraid that if I lose myself and don't think, that somehow I'll set a trigger off and hurt her."  
  
It was clear to Chris that he was not qualified to treat Harper as a therapist might, but equally clear that it isn't what Harper wants, so screw it. Friends were a better support system than anything (except maube the love of a good woman, but that's what he wants to help Harper with!) Lifting the bottle to his lips to take another sip as he sees how uncomfortable his friend is truly, Chris responds as casually as a pompous politician is ever blable.  
  
"It sounds like you're afraid to...well, enjoy yourself. I don't get that, mate, which is probably not what I'm supposed to say, but really I seem to remember it was impossible to get you away from enjoying yourself with her before and Lord knows you've earned it...".  
  
"Plainly?," Harper shrugged his shoulders and with an exhale admitted, "I really don't know how. To relax, to enjoy myself, no offense," he added, "the beer helps. Still, relaxing should feel a lot more...natural. And I'm finding that it isn't, anymore." Because Chris was right, he really didn't have a problem with it before. Even being a virgin was never this stressful.  
  
 It was clear to Chris that he was not qualified to treat Harper as a therapist might, but equally clear that it isn't what Harper wants, so screw it. Friends were a better support system than anything (except maube the love of a good woman, but that's what he wants to help Harper with!) Lifting the bottle to his lips to take another sip as he sees how uncomfortable his friend is truly, Chris responds as casually as a pompous politician is ever blable.  
  
"It sounds like you're afraid to...well, enjoy yourself. I don't get that, mate, which is probably not what I'm supposed to say, but really I seem to remember it was impossible to get you away from enjoying yourself with her before and Lord knows you've earned it..."  
  
"Plainly?," Harper shrugged his shoulders and with an exhale admitted, "I really don't know how. To relax, to enjoy myself, no offense," he added, "the beer helps. Still, relaxing should feel a lot more...natural. And I'm finding that it isn't, anymore." Because Chris was right, he really didn't have a problem with it before. Even being a virgin was never this stressful.  
  
"Well, now we're getting somewhere." Chris said, in a manner much brighter than Harper had spoken. This, at least, he was used to: he was the practical, down to earth, scientist -- contrary to Chris' idealist, bombastic politician. Actually, he had always thought it was indicative of the type of people Harper surrounded himself with; Lyndsi was "like the sun", he used to say. It's not surprising he grew colder without his personal sun for a decade.   
  
Brushing across his forehead as he speaks, Chris was trusting his instinct to keep from overthinking every word himself. If he didn't relax, how could Harper relax?  
  
"I don't like the word stress." Chris says, blunt. "It's elitist and therapist-y, like...stress is a condition you can cure if you drink tea and listen to Buddha on CD." Interrupting himself to laugh, genuinely, Chris doesn't shy away from smirking, trying to draw Harper into a similar smirk.  
  
"But come on, mate, it's Lynds. And you. She dragged your ass out of the study for years; you pulled her back in and put her on top of the table, it just works. Yin and yang. Cheech and chong." He winks at him, then pauses. "Or is that too much pressure, knowing she needs you? Cause she kind of does. It's kind of just a fact."  
  
Harper laughed as well, a softer sound compared to his boisterous friend, but it was laughter all the same. The idea of curing all the anxieties that ailed him with chamomile tea and Buddhist chants was laughable. Still, he would have surmised that a politician such as himself dealt heavily with constant 'stress', or whatever word he referred to it as.  
  
It just works was Chris' big argument. As simple as it was, Harper found himself smirking about it (residual from the previous accurate description). He was right, after all...that's how it had always felt with her. Right.  
  
"Haven't felt needed in a long time," he supplied after a brief nod, "I don't want to disappoint her."  
  
"Yeah, I guess I get that." Chris tried to keep the comment as casual as Harper had, but clearly lacked the experience to sound as world weary.  
  
That was sad, he thinks, how expectant Harper was he might hurt his wife in some way or another. It's the privilege of those left behind to be unconditioned to violence, and it was something Harper wanted to spare Lyndsea, because he loved her.  
  
"Hey, listen, about..the compariso--It was an asshole thing to do, okay? I just want to say that. I'm on your side here. You can vent all you need." Chris' hand was up and slicing through the air with emphasis, because he was talking about his boy, aight? No messing with him, none.  
  
"God, mate, it ticked me off," he shakes his head, nose wrinkling, "and told him so, too."  
  
Chris clears his throat, then says slowly, "But yeah, guess I get not wanting to disappoint her. Impossible for the two of you not to idealized the other what with all you went to. So yeah, hey, maybe it's good to remember she wasn't perfect, why should you have to be? Cause sorry mate, genius maybe but perfect you ain't."  
  
He was smirking again.  
  
"Thanks," he nodded after sniffing, looking up from his beer to look at his friend. He didn't doubt for a moment that Chris had said it to his brother's face actually. It made him feel a tiny bit better, just a smidge.  
  
"That makes you and...you, actually, most who know about it are pointedly impartial. For a good reason, obviously." Still, it didn't hurt to hear that not only was he justified in his anger, as no one denied that much at least, but that the anger was actually shared. That part was less common.  
  
With genuine confusion on his features, he chuckled at himself for his train of thought which was that, to him, Lyndsi was perfect.  
  
"Never claimed to be perfect," he smirked and then allowed, "just better." Well, before, that's what he had claimed before.  
  
"A good reason." Scoffing in the middle of a laugh (it made a very strange sound burst from his lips truthfully, but Chris just takes the elephant's trumpet in stride), he shook his head. "Sorry but being related to a dick doesn't mean you should keep impartiality. In fact doesn't it mean you should tell them off when they're wrong more? Yes, I'm sure it does, definitely read that in a Hallmark card somewhere."   
  
Well, that implied the whole "love them even when you hate them" thing but, Chris wasn't sure where Harper lands on that scale. He's sure there's a scale though. The scientist in Harper loved quantifiable data. It's like how Chris polls everything before he takes a position.   
  
Except when it came to sleeping with your brother's widow; he didn't need a poll to tell him that was a dick move. Or sleeping with your deceased husband's brother, but Chris did get some idea where Harper was on that scale. IE, that Lyndsea could do no wrong in his eyes. As helpful as shattering that image might be for his friend though, could he stand to think he was taking Harper's safety net from him too?   
  
"And yeah well, you are better. Again I direct you to exhibit A: You came back from the dead. Ahem, but anyways...back to the important thing," Chris trails off, then tilts his head to ask, "maybe you and Lynds should go somewhere you've never been together? Get away from everything and everyone that just expects her to be pregnant in two weeks, and like, really be together? And you know, there's no shame in bringing a little blue pill mate." Chris wiggles his eyebrow. "Or for that matter any other kind of fun toy."  
  
"Sounds like Hallmark," he humored with a small smirk, shaking his head. He was of course in agreement, even if he wouldn't have managed to call Max a dick. Well, unless it was to his face. He would probably actually say worse, and had.  
  
"Go away? Now?" He considered that, his brows furrowing. All he ever wanted to be for almost a decade was home, he hadn't really thought of leaving it behind even for a day. And it wasn't only Lyndsi that Harper wanted to come back to, but Alcott too. Granted, he was to start school again soon, if he was going back at all, that was. Eliza wasn't, she was back in Paris, actually. So, who knew.  
  
"Some shame," he cleared his throat, going back to drinking his beer, "some. And...toys- no, nope, I'm done, that's my line, I'm drawing it. Can't talk about it."  
  
"Yeah. Doesn't have to be far you know! Could just rent a hotel in town here," he used the beer bottle to gesture at the Ferris wheel behind them with a little smirk. Cocky, he mused, "Course I dunno, maybe it's hard for you to find a place in London you two hadn't already," and with that Chris clicked his tongue in his cheek and popped it out, grin wide.  
  
Funny how being coarse and blunt made the awkward and embarrassing easy to take. Mary Poppins did know something after all with the sugar spoonful.   
  
"Aha, oh fine, that's a perfectly fine line to draw," Chris nods, about to lift his hand to Harper's shoulder again before remembering what his friend had said about "casual touches" and dropped it to his pocket again. He swallows another sip.  
  
"I imagine boundaries are probably good to respect too." That time he sounded appropriate world weary, honestly. "But you know...you won't hurt her. I know you won't believe that though, cause, seems to me you have to stop thinking and just start doing, and you'll believe it once you've seen it."  
   
"Ha," he smirked briefly as Chris gestured to the Ferris wheel and then wagged his finger side to side, "no that's checked off the list." Shrugging, as smug as he was capable of being, he took another drink.  
  
"You're asking me," he raised his eyebrows, feeling it was necessary to reiterate, "me, to stop thinking and 'just do it'? Mate, there's only so many miracles I'm capable of dishing out." It wasn't even half-serious.  
  
"See, I learned modesty."  
  
"Aw man, come on I didn't want to know thaaat..." Chris groaned, only half joking as he shook the hand he used to gesture off, like he had to clean it off. The smirk, on the other hand, was genuine because that was almost smug of his friend and as such he was almost proud.  
  
 "And yeah...yeah and I gues I, clearly lost my mind in the meantime." Now he's rubbing off what was...a stubble, oh great, he needed a shave (before Candice saw). Dropping his hand as he finishes off the beer he mutters, "I dunno mate, maybe have a couple more beers then so it's not so...much pressure to think, at least. Or maybe help her get...there first, so you already are accomplished, yeah? Cause I'm betting she can help you forget a lot better than I'm ever going to forget we had this conversation."


	14. Just Let Me Hold You

The nightly 'routine' was an aspect of returning to his life that made him both anxious and relaxed. Ever a man of complexity, he couldn't have one without the other. Acclimating was a constant process, a more strenuous process than even himself imagined. He supposed it was because his dreams of returning usually stopped at the reunion, but life went on after the happily ever after, and it was never without its challenges.  
  
As far as challenges went, however, this one was easily endurable, with minimal burden because the reward and payoffs were so monumental to him. Being able to spend time longer with his family without anxiety, being able to kiss his wife in 'public' without flinching or feeling shame, behaving more normally in general.  
  
He turned off the faucet, picking up a hand towel to dry his face before looking in the mirror. The mirror in their bathroom didn't speak, like the one he had made for himself, but it didn't need to. Now he didn't need an external voice to tell him to look at himself. Years of practice had him capable of looking without turning away; it was part of a nightly routine down there, not here but try as he may he still couldn't shake it.  
  
A couple of minutes after, he left the bathroom, walking into his room to where Lyndsi sat at her vanity table, brushing her hair. He smiled.  
  
"Don't mind me," he began teasing, "I'm enjoying the view."  
  
Five days had passed in a blur for her -- and yet each day had presented new dilemmas of the happy-but-bitter sort, so much so that she was exhausted by the time she had turned in every night before.   
  
First day, Harper and Al had happily destroyed the official certificate of death (renamed by their son the official Proof The World Needs Brackner Brilliance)--and there were legal documents to sign. She, meanwhile, had quietly exhumed the grave--shifted the coffin to a morgue nearby, and begun searching for who it really was. Then they got to destroy the marble tombstone. It had felt utterly bizarre for her to take a pick-axe to something she had made a pilgrimage to every year and had a priest bless - but it was wonderful to do it with her husband and son.  
  
The second and third days they had shopped - for clothes, and then for ingredients both for Harper's study, and because she was determined to learn from Elena what she could prepare herself for him. Harper's parents had come over every morning for breakfast.   
  
(She'd say his whole family was, but there was a very conspicuous absence of one brother. Max had left her a voicemail saying he was happy for them and that he was giving them space--and part of her hated that she was so relieved.)  
  
Not everything had been wonderful: she knew the physical scars, while the ones that could were healing every night and vanishing, were only chapter one. Harper looked over his shoulder constantly (when he could bear to tear his eyes from her); he was badly claustrophobic in the crowd at the store, had shaken so badly he broke a snow globe downstairs. She felt him tense when she kissed him unexpectedly, and then almost force himself to relax -- other times, he couldn't stop kissing her long enough for her to breathe.   
  
It had been sort of like that tonight, which was why she sits in lacy lingerie she hadn't worn in nine and a half years, brushing her hair slowly but leaving her lipstick and light on. See, there was one obvious indicator to her all was not fine: in five days of happily-ever-after, she and Harper had not had sex.  
  
Alcott had been throwing his parents smirks all night as he sat working on some wand experiment, asking his father questions and then apologizing for 'distracting them' even though all they'd been doing was sharing wine and looking at a scrapbook. She perks up as Harper appears, blushing at his words. Speaking without turning from the mirror, it's through a soft smirk.   
  
"I do mind." Lyndsi shifts her hair off her shoulder, "I would mind very much if you weren't looking and enjoying, dear."  
  
"Thankfully, that isn't the case," he replied easily, walking further into the room. This was the reason why the nights were anxiety ridden. One simple fact loomed over them, unspoken but loud, for Harper especially. But tonight would be different. Today had been a good day and he felt good too. He could try, he wanted to try.  
  
Her hair was over one shoulder leaving the other bare but for a strap. As Harper reached her and stood behind her, he leaned to place a kiss against her shoulder, his hands rising to hold her upper arms. Finding he felt awkward with his hands, he started moving them up and down in a light caress. After leaning his head away from her shoulder, he recognized what she wore.  
  
"I remember this," he chuckled, a small smirk appearing on his face before he asked, "Didn't I rip this?"  
  
Brush drawing to almost still, gathering tresses without releasing them as her husband leans to meet his lips to her shoulder, her faint smile widens. His mouth was warm and (almost more importantly) his hands were firm holding her. With a tremble of surprise, Lyndsi resumes brushing, letting him hold her, letting his fingers dig in. She resumes, because she wanted him to remember this, loving and sharing intimacy, was natural. This was their normal day; neither boring nor new, but comforting. This was them.  
  
Tilting her head to look sideways as he recognizes her chemise, she laughs, fanning the flame already in her belly.   
  
"Mhm," she breathes out, setting the silver brush down to shake her hair forward and then taking his right hand, guiding it over her shoulder towards a revealed, ripped strap. "Right there. It gaps too," her head nods at the mirror as if to indicate the crevice in her chest covered in an extra fold of fabric," thank you very much."  
  
Her words were teasingly sarcastic. She'd still never fixed it, and only wore it on his first missed birthday eight and a half years ago.  
  
Looking at the reflection of them, her voice softens as she guides his hand in a slow drag around, then down her neck. Her eyes stay fixed on the glass image. There was a weighty contemplation and appreciation to her pose, as if she regards an impressionist painting on matter of being loved.   
  
Breath quiet, she says, "You know every time you touch me even all these years later, I light up like the Christmas tree in our foyer. And," as she tilts to give him access to her neck's nape, "I feel about eleven feet tall too."  
  
"You're welcome," he replied cheekily enough, fingering the strayed strap after she had guided his hand there. Pointing out that she could fix that strap whenever she wished didn't even cross his mind, because that wasn't the point of it. He looked in the mirror now, watching her watching them, before his hand started moving again, following her direction.  
  
As she paused his hand ventured on its own, movements slow but steady to ward off and cover any possible hesitation. His fingertips traced the soft skin of her cleavage, knuckles grazing the curvature of her breasts.  
  
His lips were growing dry as he felt nervousness stir the air again, but considerably less than the last time. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was touching her, caressing her, and not the other way around. When the attention turned to him, it might be a different experience. But she was right, her skin was already flushing.  
  
Emboldened by her reaction he replies, "If you were eleven feet tall I couldn't reach to kiss you here." Then he moved his head to kiss her neck as his free hand moved down her side before resting at her navel. He breathed against her neck before speaking, "I'd reach closer to here." Lower, due to the typical body ratio, but apparently he hadn't been that emboldened.  
  
Lyndsi's breath hitched, even as her husband seems to see fit to tease her, stalling just above the juncture of her legs. Her eyes widen in surprise and pleasure. Her smile flitters, coy.  
  
They hadn't discussed this, but after two days she -had- looked up some preliminary research on emotional states after returning from war. They hadn't been encouraging reports. Yet most basically it had made sense to not push, truly, anything--and it had relaxed her to know her telling him about Max hadn't...well, made him not want to touch her anymore.   
  
Neck nuzzling his nose, she murmurs incoherantly.   
  
"Harper..."   
  
The exhale was a murmur, soft like the silk on her skin he brushes past. Chest lifting to his touch, hungry for him, she let's her eyes meet his gaze in the mirror again.   
  
"You sure, scientifically?" She teases. "You're...just shy of six foot yourself? Sure it wouldn't be," she casts her gaze down to his hands prettily, painted lips parting as her lashes blink twice, "just a little lower?"  
  
Lyndsi wants to move his hand, but was enjoying the fact he reached for her too much.   
  
She spoke his name as if it were a secret, not one held close and cloaked in shame but rather the type of secret that could be considered life-changing. Was it just a wishful thinking?  
  
No. She moved closer to his hands, her breath had hitched (a bit like his hand), and he had already mentioned how her pearl skin was beginning to flush. He moved on quickly from his doubts, knew not to linger them, and knew already that the fact that he was thinking -this- much was a potentially negative sign. Ironic, him saying there was such a thing as thinking too much.  
  
Meeting her gaze through the mirror momentarily, he found himself half smirking and half chuckling at her comment that technically, scientifically, he wouldn't actually reach her navel. His hand slid down, complying but first rested on her inner thigh.  
  
"Closer to here I suspect," he licked his dry lips and took another breath near her neck, "and nowhere near here," he placed the kiss behind her ear, "or here," his hand now cupped instead of traced the swell of her chest, every breath of his apparent as he tried to move without hesitation.  
  
Neck folding towards his as lips met that sensitive hot spot behind her ear, chest lifting to meet the cup of his palm on instinct, her body remembers his. The thought was a rush.   
  
Harper had always been seductive. It had been a secret she held with tiny smiles and shiny eyes (that Mary had read correctly in approximately thirty seconds). Awkward and bookish he might have been, liable to get excited over unpronounceable chemicals. After she manipulated a spin-the-bottle game to kiss him, he might have had fire-engine cheeks, but he pushed her up against his doorframe, claimed her lips. When he decided to go for something, he went. And went. (And went.)  
  
"Well then," she chuckles bare, "I'm glad I'm short."  
  
Her heart skips a beat as his knuckles brush once on her thigh. For all the changes to his physique, however start-then-stop his actions, his touch was warm familiarity. The need to turn and pull him into her, to grasp his neck, yank, and swallow his mouth into hers, was striking her. Lyndsi wants to kiss him until she can't breathe anything but the smoke from their red flesh, tie his tongue with hers, grasp his hair as reins and disappear into his skin -- she wants him, entire.   
  
The nagging thought that she wasn't touching him yet had it's own red flag: if she spun, and pushed him too far she could scare him into defense. Her teeth dug into her tongue as instead she lifts her hand to his cheek without turning around.  
  
"Husband," she whispered. "Please take me to our bed."  
  
Her hand seem to float up to his face, her touch light and feathery making him briefly wonder if that gesture had as much thought and control as the ones he gave. He moved his head to kiss the palm of her hand in response to her request, nodding slowly afterward.  
  
Decidedly not thinking of the fact that despite never having much physical strength he could have easily carried her before where now he'd strain, Harper instead moved back up her thigh to reach her hand, intertwining their fingers. He stood straight again, pulling her up to stand as well, kissing her lips the moment she was standing.  
  
Standing as she was prompted, Lyndsi lets her hand fall with grace off his cheek to rest curved against his neck. Her eyes have fluttered shut as he kisses her, and she feels faint for breath from the simple fact she's finally kissing her husband, in their bedroom. There was an excitement she felt in the unspoken promise, even an anxiety--a wariness in him she wants to dispel.  
  
Her arm lifts gently to wrap around his neck, pulling herself up on her toes to kiss him back, fervent. Otherwise she won't move yet, not until he leads her. Harper had heard the request, nodded to it, and even as she was losing herself to his warmth, she knew there had been a brief, barely noteworthy, hesitance in the gesture. The hand he intertwined with hers she rests between them, playing lightly against the swell of her chest, her thumb firm on his pulse.  
  
Kissing Lyndsi was easier than breathing sometimes. Kissing her made him feel like it was natural, like he was born to do so. And sometimes it did feel like that, like Harper was born to love her. He had made the mistake of saying that aloud once, and the mickey had been taken out of him for weeks by nearly everyone. But that's how it felt, that's how he feels now.  
  
And he likes it, loves it. Her mouth tastes subtly of the mint of her toothpaste, and her lipstick was custom-made to taste of strawberry, sometimes peaches and not of all the chemicals lipstick is made of: propylparaben, retinyl palmitate, tocopherol acetate, to name a few. No, her lipstick was natural, as natural as they came, it was also addicting. He could have kissed her forever, he would have happily done so but when he realized that, he knew in had to push himself.  
  
Kissing her had always been as natural as breathing, but he had been insatiable for all of her. He still wanted her, God did he want her, but- there was always a but and it was always in his mind. He pulled her closer, wrapping an arm around her waist again to press them together and take small steps backwards towards the bed.  
  
There was a sudden squeeze in her rising chest--or not sudden, nothing Harper was doing was sudden, but grew naturally from the gentle pressure of his arm, the swell of their kiss. His steady comforting pulse beckoning her on, and she follows willingly, even eagerly, even though she knew pushing might scare him.   
  
She follows to the bed, squeezing his hand tight as she moves to sit down. Reassuring, kissing him back firmly, tongue caressing his, tasting the inside of his mouth. Resting on the edge of their bed, she slips her free hand up the back of his neck and cups his neck. When she backs for breath, she toys with a few strands of his hair.  
  
She's breathy as she adds, "I love you," just gasps it out, gaze hazy as she looks up at him.   
  
"And," her fingers dart across his neck, "Considering past experience," she lets out one airy chuckle, "why don't you take mine off first, so it doesn't get ripped?"  
  
Even as they reach the bed he doesn't break away from the kiss. He's warmed, happy, and doesn't want that to go away. Harper only realized he needed air when Lyndsi did and backed up to breathe. His inhales were heavy as he watched her, licking his dry lips once. His heartrate either quickened or steadied to hear once again her words of adoration.  
  
"I love you," he repeated, placing another brief kiss on her lips, a small grin appearing on his face at her teasing suggestion before he swallows a slowly building lump in his throat.  
  
He moves the straps off her shoulders, a tribute to the ripped material and then leaned in to kiss the skin of her shoulder again. Moving his hands down her sides slowly, he sucked the skin between his lips, but didn't find it in himself to bring out teeth. Teeth on skin, ripping, tearing, blood- no.  
  
His hands reached the hem of her chemise and slid the material up against her skin, tracing every line and pulling away from her neck to bring it over her head. Once she was free of her lingerie, he took her in, his eyes appreciative and hungry. She was beautiful. He swallowed and licked his lips again, meeting her gaze before he leaned forward, this time trailing kisses down her chest instead.  
  
There was another reason she asked him to bare her first; Lyndsi would be surprised if he had taken off even his socks (yet, those at least had to go). Yet she had no objection (beyond the obvious cloth barrier) if Harper wanted to leave his (oversize; though never large, he was still drowning in the new clothes) undershirt on. If it would make him feel more at ease with his appearance, more relaxed, more...ahem, virulent, then she was just grateful he was still kissing her.  
  
Breath faint as she fights for it, wherever his lips travel her English skin gains the shade of a fabled damask rose. The smile on her lips was anything but faint when he let's her silk fall somewhere forgotten; her eyes are fixed on his in the single candle lit room as she leans back, lays out. Her hand still loose on his neck, once she has the other free she lets it drift down, tangling her fingers in the cloth on the small of his back to hold herself steady as he came to her chest instead.  
  
Remarkable, she thinks in a daze, how fast her body remembers him, how easily excitable it was. Murmuring in appreciation and to ward off the giggles in her throat at that look of desire her husband had, she is still for a while, save shivers and hums.   
  
Their sheets might as well still be Brackner silk for how warm she is in his embrace without sticking to them. Then again, she thinks with eyes fluttering and letting her ankle wrap around his playfully, they were hardly started.   
  
He moves over her, following her as she laid down on the bed simply because he loathed being so far even if insecurities and hesitances were nagging at him with increased persistence. He cast it out, focused on the situation, on her. This woman he loved through everything and who loved him back; the wife he had clung to in spirit who he could finally hold every night. He wanted to make her happy, and he wanted to show her that he could still do that and that he hadn't forgotten how.  
  
His mouth finally reached her rosy peaks, and his tongue traced the small circle, avoiding the nipple for several drawn out seconds in meticulous precision before he closed his mouth around it. Harper listens to her quiet but aroused sounds. It was this more than anything that made him realize despite his want, physically he was not the same.  
  
Beginning to worry, he moved over to her other breast, this time unbothered with the teasing as he tried to not think about it and relax himself but found it difficult to do so. His hand traveled to her hip again, digging his fingertips.  
  
When Harper took her hip, Lyndsi's murmur pitched - from habit, she thinks, recognizing the clench of her husband leaving finger prints on her thigh.   
  
Her eyes shut in pleasure already, now they tighten, other leg spreading wider on the bed. She tried to make it subtle, she did, but she was only wearing their wedding bands now--there was only so subtle she could be.  
  
And he'd grabbed her leg, firm, she tells herself. That had to mean something (her heart skips a beat as she hears a tiny mutter for 'oh God' in her throat just waiting to be coaxed out, wanting to). Every other time they had kissed since the glorious moments of reunion, she had been aware of a growing desperation in Harper--as if he was kissing her in questions, kissing to ask her, beg her, still to love him. Though he was still focused on her--having her bare, holding her, kissing her, massaging, loving--the firm, determination with which he took her breast and thigh makes her smile flicker with hope.   
  
(She does understand why he's nervous of hoping. Feeling this good--she both waits for the other shoe to drop, and just slides her legs further, blissfully unaware shoes had ever been invented as goosebumps pebble up her hips.)  
  
For a moment he stilled, suddenly frightened his grip had been too rough and that he had hurt her but his worries fade as her sighs and murmurs of pleasure continued.  
  
He felt her legs part wider and wider under him. The surge of anxiety clawed at his throat again, but he only swallowed it down, leaning away enough to pull the undershirt off him and discard it as well. His quick return to her body was both out of a need and want to keep touching her and not wanting to focus attention on the scars; he didn't think he could handle it right now.

Craning her neck forward in surprise as he rears back to strip his shirt, Lyndsi lays otherwise still. There was little enough light to see the patchwork of black and red, but she felt the raised skin as he presses back to her in a kiss, swallows her mouth with his disfigured own, fingers running up her slit and she forgot. Just for a minute. She felt so wonderful to be wrapped in heat and flames after drowning so long, even the rougher marks she finds with her fingertips on his back would only spur her on. Coarse, unrefined -- these were signs of being unfinished, and they weren't finished, for fuck's sakes, they still have their whole lives together.   
  
(There hadn't been a single blemish on that epitaph: just smooth stone, and marble was just so cold.)  
  
  
This time when he came down, he kissed her mouth again, claiming her lips for his own, as she promised him they were, and trailed the hand on her thigh down, two fingers tracing her slit. If he had been breathing, the air would have hitched in his throat. His eyes scrunched tighter as he willed himself to focus, concentrate. She was so beautiful, he wanted her, he wanted this!

She moves her hand up his back, but must have moved too quickly, been wet too fast (as if she'd been anything since his return), for Harper pulls back breathing unsteady, harsh as if he gulps underwater swimming against the current. Or maybe that was her; her lips felt deserted when they strike bare air. 

Eventually he had to pull back for breath, and though he held himself up with an elbow, it was obvious his mind and his body weren't in agreement.

Her hand lifts instinctively to his cheek, touching his face gingerly. It was meant as a reassuring gesture, though she couldn’t deny the feeling that she wanted something more. She always wanted something more. The guilt that prickled her skin, it was the first time she’d felt guilt in being with him. Strange that it would come at such a time when he seemed to be finally free.

"I'm sorry, I-I think I need a minute." Harper gasps out, eyes shutting.

Lyndsi exhales as she tells herself it again -- Harper needed to take the moment (minute, he said minute) to keep from slipping into his sea of nightmares, so she would be patient. Ha! Lyndsi had never been patient. Until it seemed unknowingly she waited almost a neat decade for his return; Harper had made her patient once before, she had to do so now.  
  
Nodding in their sheets without moving, she murmurs quietly, eyes wide to take in the obvious conflict on his face. Her heart flutters, wary.  
  
"No need to apologize. I understand. There's no rush."   
  
"It's not that," he shook his head, swallowing again and then breathing out in an exhale and then closing his eyes to breathe a little easier. Genius he might have been but he had never had a problem emptying his mind of other thoughts besides his wife when he was with her. The taste of her lips, the feel of her skin, the shivering little gasps she would make when he'd touch her just right.

Her gasp was quick in her confusion, "Then what-," only Lyndsi shut up as she watched him close his eyes, gulp in more air. There was a tenseness in her husband's shoulders she hadn't felt, she realized, preoccupied with the scars. Touching the raised skin on his back in fascination as much as kindness, Lyndsi was trying to familiarize them both with how it would feel for them to be brushed with smooth skin and not, she thinks in anger, because she was about to hurt him worse. He was tense with that expectation, and she hadn't even noticed.

Now his mind was reeling with countless of other thoughts, and the majority of them involved some anger towards himself, shame in himself, worry, and embarrassment. All these problems, such anxiety about even being in a department store for too long, they weren't enough. No, now he couldn't even get it up.  
  
"There's something wrong with me, I can't-,"

"No, no-there's nothing wrong with you," she was quick to say, but shut up when he spoke over her. Over, as in louder, because he'd been hovering, but now he was back on his knees.

\-- Harper opened his eyes as he shook his head, teeth gritting as he struggled to keep his eyes dry, "it's not working, I don't know why it-" no, he probably did. Search his mind long enough to find the reason for erectile dysfunction and he'd see the problem. The solution was a little more troubling.  
  
"I'm sorry," he repeated again, throat dry as he averted her gaze.

What wasn't working? She was working, she thinks in confusion, when he touched her--fuck, she was still aroused, there was an ache she was doing her damndest to ignore.  
  
"Oh." She breathes out, and it's only then she realizes the distinct absence of him hard on her thigh.   
  
Point of fact in her observational skills defense, he wasn't actually touching her at all now. Her heart skips as he apologizes and she makes wordless dismissals--all eagerly shaking head, hair every which direction on her neck, eyes soft. No sound actually makes it from her lips--bit only because she couldn't hell but feel Harper would only feel ignored if he apologized and she didn't accept it.  
  
As if this was his fault--!  
  
Biting down hard on her tongue and shivering as he pulls further away from her, those beautiful eyes disappear and her hand falls onto her bare chest. It rests there, the other toying with the sheet, looking at him in concern and confusion.  
  
"Am I doing something wrong?" She rises slowly, unable to not ask.  
  
"No!" He quickly looks back up, bringing his gaze back to hers, shaking his head insistently. How could she think that it was something that she did or wasn't doing? He wasn't doing a good job of keeping his eyes clear; they stung, prickling with tears he wished would just keep back. Was he really incapable of holding back a couple of tears?

Lyndsi's eyes widen with the urgency of his dismissal, and she shrinks with shoulders inwards, nodding once almost as if on command from his whisper-shout. It was easier when he reached for her hand, so she nods again, squeezing his hand gently back.

Had he frightened her? She shrunk away from him for a moment, a gesture that had him reaching for her immediately because that wasn't his intent, though he understood...he was frightening now. There was a word that had never been used to describe him before. Genius, always; presumptuous, sometimes; pain-in-the-ass, daily (but even that was difficult to think about because of who had said it), but never frightening. Now Lyndsi had watched him murder a man in cold blood, and when he wasn't whispering he was shouting and- he was a mess. A freaky, mess.  
  
"Lyndsi, you're beautiful," he spoke softly, reaching for a hand and unable to help another long gaze at her bare form before looking back up, "I want you, I want this, I want to make love to you, but I...I can't." Stating it aloud made his voice hitch in pitch unexpectedly.  
  
"It's not fair," he said it to Lyndsi aloud for the first time. He had said it aloud already, but not to her. He didn't want to burden her further, hurt her further, but the simple, almost whining, statement came out of him without his intention. Neither was the one that came after it.  
  
"I'm not a man, I don't feel like a man, I feel like a freak."  
  
The blush on her cheeks floods her throat when he looks at her again, and she looks down into the covers, their sheets in abashed. Was that the trouble? He thought he was ugly, compared to her? The man who had held and loved her irregardless when her body forced a hole a hundred times it's normal size to have Al? Who had massaged bloated ankles, wrapped her in blankets and his arms when she had a fever...  
  
Her eyes dart back up to his abruptly at his words, acting like a lash themselves to scar the world with. Face crumpled in sympathy, she squeezes his hand gently again, brushing a few tears from her eyes with the other.   
  
"No, it's not fair." She agreed, because he was right. "But -- Harper, what they did to you..." Her throat goes dry, and she curls her legs into her chest, knees digging under the marks he left.   
  
"It's..natural, to feel disconnect--it's only been five days. I'm surprised you let me touch you at all." Lyndsi spoke clearly, but added softer, "And grateful."  
  
"Exactly, it's been five days, as if I before I could have held back all that time," he commented longingly and bitterly for the man he once was. That man had gotten himself killed, and left his wife and son to pick up the pieces of their broken lives. But there was very little he wouldn't give to be that man again. The six weeks no sex after Al had been torture enough, but the word 'torture' was one no longer suited for everyday conversation.  
  
"I want things to be better already...you would think after nearly ten years...," he couldn't finish the sentence.  
  
It was jarring, the mood swing, the bitter joke spoken so longingly--but, Lyndsi thinks in bitter amusement of her own, it did a great job of killing the ache between her legs for the moment. Unsatisfying way to cure it, but she was less distracted by it now. She sat in silence a long moment, unsure, and thinking hard. When she spoke, she was clinging to his hand.  
  
"They are better, Harper. They are immeasurably, wonderfully, better, just because you're here." It was supposed to be reassuring, supposed to be firm, and she hates that there was a definite plead in her last four words. Like she was saying _please, please don't tug at that thread, I might unravel._

They were for him too. God, there was nothing he could say that would sum up his happiness at being back but was it wrong of him to want more? He just wanted to be touched by his wife without flinching and be able to get hard! Was that such a scandalous request? Was he not owed -some- consideration after the hell he went through?!

He didn't say this aloud. Harper had put too much on her already, effectively ruined their night.

The silence was interminable, even if it was just a moment.

"And I think," her voice quavers before dropping to a quiet whisper, "that if we hold ourselves to the people we were a decade ago, we'll never make it." Lyndsi's eyes jumped back to his, searching. As his shoulders drop as he saw the truth in her statement, she reaches in determination for his cheek. 

She was right. In a way there was no going back. So much had happened, too much had happened that couldn't be ignored and swept aside. And there was some good things, buried underneath the pile of crap baggage.

Holding firm, she adds, "Which is good. Because a decade ago you weren't the man who saved half of France. Which is marginally less important than the fact you gave our son control over his life again, but I suppose, being fair to France," she was laughing through a gulp of tears even if she was ever unsure, "it is only marginally."

He chuckled at her examples, nodding and agreeing with her.  
  
"If I hadn't though, who would really have missed the French?" Spoken like a true Englishman. He swallowed and smiled back at her, leaning in to kiss her again. Still as easy as breathing.  
  
"Thank you for being so patient with me," even if I can't be with myself was the unspoken message.  
  
"Always," she says, reminds him, whispering it before he kisses her. She clings to his lips, hand curling around his, the other leaping to his neck and holding on. If he wasn't going to be in her, she was melding them together as much as she could in other ways. The kiss was long--quietly so, she just stayed pressed to him, tasting the remainder of her lipstick and his mouthwash, lasting until her breath gave out.  
  
When she pulls back, it was more because she was cold than anything else; his body stayed firmly mostly an inch away from hers, and she still didn't want to push him.  
  
"I love you," she says in a bare whisper against his lips, her free hands now slipping to hold him close. "And I just want you here with me. I want all of you, but at your pace. And you have nothing to prove to me," she pulls herself closer, a half inch, "you held on to me, kept me safe, for a decade Harper--let me do the same for you, just a little."   
  
Kept her safe, yes, that's what he liked to think that he did. It gave it all more purpose but the fact was he hadn't been here to do it himself and that would always hurt, just a little. He was learning to throw it aside, because there were far better things to focus on but thinking optimistically was pa rt of the healing process.  
  
And maybe he didn't have anything to prove to her, but he did have many things to prove to himself, not to mention the entire English wizarding population, apparently. The next reporter he saw would be headed home with a new appendage sticking out of their forehead that would a sign that said 'trespasser'.  
  
Harper nodded, smiling before breathing out against her lips, "There's nowhere else I rather be."  
  
Lyndsi believes him; actually, she seems just to know already, with every fiber of her being, even as she nods, shivering but this time from warmth and comfort. What hurts was the obvious fact he didn't know how to believe she felt the same exact way. Instead of trying to explain it to him, she decided to simply show, resolves again to continue doing it.  
  
Sliding her legs back down to rest under her knees in their sheets, she nods again, still holding on to him.  
  
"And you never have to be anywhere else." She says, curling herself into his side slowly, hoping it wasn't too much, beyond hoping. Maybe it was because she needed to touch him more, make it clear that she wanted him with every part of her.   
  
"Just let me hold you," she says and again pretends it wasn't pleading. His arms were making her forget she wasn't wearing a stitch.   
  
He moves closer to her, exhaling again, quickly wiping an eye and even more quickly forgetting about it. His arm moved to  keep her better curled against his chest, her arms wrapping around his bare chest and his own around her shoulders. Technically she wanted to hold him but it would be nearly physically impossible not to hold her as well.  
  
Little by little it would get better, but it was the waiting that would be bound to break him in half faster than an ything else about it. There was only so much he could do for himself. For the rest, he sincerely hoped Lyndsi had a plan.  
  
Even though she felt he gathered her together more than she could hold him, her chin lays against his neck as he leans down. She holds on as tightly as she can, thinking for a brief moment it was how she held Alcott when he was younger and already bigger than her. Reaching one hand, palm flat and warm she rubs his back in a soothing circle before tugging very gently so they could lay down together. Tangling their legs together, she rearranges against their pillow so she can rest his head very gently against her chest. Her own eyes were shut as she just held on, murmuring a spell to bring the blankets over them so she doesn't have to let him go for even a second. The warm weight of them just snuggles her closer, even as she could feel the residue from the tears he'd rubbed away already. That was a very different kind of wetness than she'd been expecting tonight, but it just makes her curl closer, kissing his forehead as she murmurs near his ear, "I got you. I'm here, I got you."


	15. Anger Has a Price

It had taken proper planning and more forethought than Zoe usually put into conversations, but if anything that was a measure of how much she cared. Bianca might have hoped that Zoe's wish to come speak to Harper would have died out by the time she was sober, but that hope was foolish. After all, when Zoe set her mind on something it was very difficult to change it. That's how she knew how to best deal with the Brackner mind, that and years of experience only being around the family afforded you.  
  
Walking up the manor with a mental outline of how she wanted to go, Zoe used the brass knocker to knock on the front door. Hands in her jacket pockets, she fidgeted on her toes while she waited for the door to open. Jimmy opened the door for her, greeting her kindly and fondly as he always did. Jimmy had been with the Brackners for as long as she could remember. As a butler he was outstanding but as a friend as a person there was almost no better.  
  
After asking where Harper was and being pointed towards the study, Zoe didn't even need to insist on going down there herself. She supposed dropping formalities was another advantage of knowing this family for more than two decades.  
  
Knocking on the door to Harper's study, Zoe waited yet again, smile perched in place. What she hadn't expected however, was Harper opening the door as if he had expected her all along, knew what she was here for, and had already decided he didn't want to hear it.  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
And almost instantaneously, her intricately thought out plan fell through as she envisioned herself tearing up some cue cards.  
  
"Good evening yourself, Harper. May I come in?"  
  
Harper walked into his study without looking back, so Zoe took this as an invitation to let herself in after him. Closing the door behind her, Harper was already speaking before the doorknob had clicked into place.  
  
"The answer's no."  
  
"To what?," asked Zoe, intending on making him say everything outright.  
  
"To forgiving Max," Harper answered stiffly, standing against his desk strewn with papers. Zoe almost smiled seeing him there, in this room, alive. Sometimes she could still hardly believe it.  
  
"That's why you're here isn't it? To speak in his defense. Even waited for a time where Lyndsi wasn't in."  
  
Feigning ignorance, Zoe blinked repeatedly and gestured to the door, "Oh is she not here?"  
  
"Zoe."   
  
The one worded response was enough for her to drop the act. Nodding her head to show he wasn't wrong, Zoe sighed and explained.  
  
"I am here for him, fine, you're right, but he doesn't know I'm here."  
  
"Of course not," Harper answered dryly.  
  
Undeterred, Zoe continued, "I just couldn't sit back anymore and wait for your stubborn Brackner minds to arrive at the correct conclusion for yourselves."  
  
Harper cleverly hid a chuckle in a scoff, but Zoe wasn't fooled. Just as she had played ignorant before, Harper fought to do so now. Exactly as it had looked horrible on her then, ignorance looked dreadful on him now.  
  
"Which would be?" Harper crossed his arms in front of his chest.  
  
Zoe exhaled, "That it's pretty fucking unfair how you're taking this all out on Max when you're letting Lyndsi off the hook."  
  
"You've come here to get me to start being angry at my wife?!"  
  
Uh oh, mayday! Mayday!  
  
"No," she answered quickly, "I've come here to help you stop being angry with Max!"  
  
The look on his face said everything she needed to know about how he felt about that, but Harper wasn't a man to let an expression say what a few well-picked phrases could get across instead.  
  
"Don't waste your breath."  
  
Damn Brackner stubbornness, she swore under her breath. Breathing through her nose, Zoe took more steps into the room, making sure her arms stayed uncrossed. She wanted to be open, approachable, but still enforcing. She had a minor in behavioral neuroscience after all. Sure, she had gotten it seventeen years ago but Zoe remained up to date. It was part of her job, after all. Actually, it had been Harper who had suggested it while Max teased it. The memory was sweet and painful to remember, especially now.   
  
"What's the difference here, Harper? Huh? Lyndsea is the love of your life, yes, but Max is your brother! You've known her half your life, sure, but you've known him your whole life. How is it fair for you to blame one and exonerate the other?"  
  
"Life's not fair," Harper answered simply.   
  
Blinking in astonishment, Zoe replies in a dry tone, "Wow, you think so? That's been eluding me, Harper, wow, thank you for setting me straight. Couldn't have done it without you pal."  
  
Harper snorted. Zoe was glad that at least he still found her funny. Sighing, Zoe rubbed at her forehead.  
  
"Explain it to me. Your reason then, go on please. Why is it so easy to forgive her-"  
  
"Lyndsi is the only reason I'm standing here, Zoe." Harper interrupted her mid-sentence but Zoe wasn't annoyed by it. She wanted him to speak his mind, especially after years of having to keep his mouth shut. Then again, she thought pained, all his scars were probably an indication of how bad at keeping quiet Harper probably was.   
  
"She gave me hope when I had none, hers was the image and the memory I clung to when I had nothing, nothing at all, less. Her and Alcott stayed with me the entire time. But Max? Sandor? My parents? My friends? I let them go. I let all of you go! But them, I never let them go. And I won't. Lyndsi is my rock, I cannot lose her-"  
  
"And you won't!," Zoe insisted, "She's not going anywhere Harper! You can be mad at her, you can disagree with her, you can! She is not just your guardian angel, your sun and stars, she's a person and she made a mistake. A big fucking mistake."  
  
"Zoe," he spoke her name in a one word message again, but despite the added warning tone in it, it didn't shut her up this time.  
  
"You know I love her with all my heart, but that didn't stop me from calling her Mrs. B for four years. The B doesn't stand for Brackner. It ends with itch."  
  
"I got it."  
  
They weren't good times, Zoe recalled. Maybe she should have been more supportive of it, or maybe more apathetic about it like Sandor (she had gotten mad at him too- Zoe spent a lot of that time angry with everyone it seemed). But her anger didn't discriminate! Not like Harper's which seemed to have a spear-pointed homing beacon aimed straight for Max's chest.  
  
Zoe exhaled, "Sleeping with your dead husband's brother, that's pretty bad. Same as sleeping with your dead brother's wife. Which only gets worse given that you weren't dead after all!"  
  
"She didn't know that," Harper said, unsurprisingly rising to his wife's defense. Later she would realize that the more he did, the more she equally defended Max when that wasn't what she had come to do. It was a natural setting in her system, she supposed.   
  
"Yeah, and neither did he. Does that matter? In my opinion, no, it was still pretty fucking bad. And she is no saint, Harper." Zoe knew with that statement she was treading really dangerous territory. And despite what her next few statements might have said, she hadn't come here to attack Lyndsea either. Although it was made clear to Zoe that she could stand to be knocked off the pedestal Harper had ended up putting her on.  
  
"She might represent everything good and light in life to you right now, but her halo is kept in place by the little devil horns she has coming out of her scalp. She asked Max to move in, and after Alcott bit that therapist he sure as hell wasn't going to say no. And she was the one who initiated the affair-"  
  
Harper tried to get her to stop again, a pained expression on his face, "Zoe, I-"  
  
But if she stopped right now, she would feel similarly too pained to continue, and that would help no one.  
  
"It takes two to tango, compadre! And I'm not saying this to make you mad at her, I don't believe you should be, I don't believe you should be angry at all! And-"  
  
"And why not?"  
  
This time when he interrupted her, she was stunned enough to pause. Zoe hadn't expected that at all.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Why shouldn't I be angry, Zoe?!," he asked again, his voice rising. "Because I am. I am! I'm angry, I'm full of rage! That's how I feel!"  
  
Clearing her throat, she tried to speak again, "Harper, I-"  
  
"You what? Want things to get back to the way they were? Well, I do too! Difference is, I know it's not gonna happen. It'll never be the same! Do you honestly expect that I'll ever be okay with them so much as being in the same room alone anymore? That I won't seethe with anger every time they share a joke unknown to me because I wasn't there? Because they were here, together, in almost every single definition of the word? You think we can have the same kind of weekends, up by the lake, hanging out, knowing that they were rolling around wearing less than those swimsuits? That I won't doubt and overanalyze every single fucking glance- I don't know how much of a genius you consider me to be, Zoe, but I assure you, I am not that evolved! Even if I forgive him, I can't ever forget it. I will never trust him the same way again. And nothing, nothing at all, will ever be the same!"  
  
Her eyes were swimming with tears that threatened to pour down her face, but Zoe held them back. After some excessive blinking, she was collected again. It was abundantly clear as Harper insisted things would never be the same again how he wished it were the opposite. Wrapped up in here, in his study, like he used to, it was easy to picture everything as it was.   
  
"I know that, Harper," she tried again in a softer voice. "But it's not all or nothing here. You can work on it. You have to give Max an opportunity to earn your trust again, not-  
  
"I don't have to do anything!"  
  
A bad choice of words on her part, she knew. It was imperative that she didn't make this feel like it was against his will. The problem was that Zoe also wanted to talk to him like she normally would but she had a disposition for being naturally bossy. Again she breathed, and again she tried to calmly explain her position in all of this, and Max's.   
  
"You're punishing him. I understand why. But there's nothing you can do to him that will hurt him worse than thinking you were dead all these years."  
  
"Really, because I can think of a few others. Caelesti left me chock full of ideas!"  
  
"You're out of there and you continue to torture yourself."  
  
"What?"  
  
Running a hand through her hair after having snapped her hair band in half, Zoe pursed her lips before she began to elaborate when she realized that Harper genuinely could not see how he was hurting himself.  
  
"Shunning Max doesn't only hurt him, it hurts you. He's your brother, and you love him. All this does is hurt you the way it hurts him, and it hurts Lyndsea and Alcott as well. They're his family too."  
  
Harper had shaken his head almost from the beginning of her explanation, but by the end his entire body shook until he snapped at her. Taking a few steps away from his desk, he brought his hand out, slapping it against his chest as he spoke.  
  
"No they're not! They're mine! He moved in here and he took everything from me!"  
  
Unfazed by him approaching him, despite the near incessant tears, Zoe continued.  
  
"It was Gustav who took everything away from you, not him. And Gustav is dead now. Thank God, thank you, he's dead."  
  
Sometimes, Zoe could scarcely believe it. She still half expected him to see a glimpse of him on her way from work, to run into him while running errands. Recently what she had been picturing was a Gustav, bloody and dirty and grey rising from his grave and taking his revenge on her like he had promised at the Gala. It was a nightmare she knew would go away eventually the more life kept proving to her that he was really wrong. After having been tormented by him for so long, it was hard to remember he was gone.  
  
Zoe steadied herself again, "So is a good portion of the Caelestis, some are arrested, and the rest are on the run being hunted down. The problem is, you had your revenge already, but your anger is still there. And now you have no one to aim it towards. So you take it out on him."  
  
"If that were true, I -would- be trying to kill him."  
Every fiber of her being rejected that belief. The same way he had shaken his head at her for speaking badly (see: accurately) of Lyndsea, she shook her own head now at the thought of Harper and Max ever being so at odds with each other. Zoe refused to accept things between them could ever get that bad.   
  
"It is true, and no you wouldn't and aren't. You're doing something much worse."  
  
Harper laughed once, incredulously, rubbing a thin bony hand over his scarred face. He spun away from her, only to turn and look at her again. And look he did. His brown eyes narrowing until they resembled slits, brows furrowed together with accusation, and betrayal.  
  
"Why are you talking to me as if this was my fault? None of this, none of this is my fault! I endured what no other man has endured. I suffered for years. My faith might have wavered but it never broke. I rose out of the fucking ashes for this family, what more am I supposed to do?! Why do -I- have to be the one to yield as if I were wrong?"  
  
Despite knowing the questions were rhetorical, Zoe couldn't help but to search for the answers. It wasn't a matter of blame or yielding, Zoe wanted to tell him. He believed that forgiving Max, letting him off the hook, would prove that all that happened was never significant. If Harper forgave them then it wouldn't have been a big deal. Hadn't they already established that it was? Furthermore, hadn't they already established that technically it wasn't compared to the fact that Harper was alive again, giving this entire family a second chance none of them had expected?  
  
Before she could think of anything to say, Harper was speaking again, nearly on a tangent.  
  
"My wife and my son...they need Max, they want him around, I'm not stupid."  
  
Zoe could tell how difficult it was for him to admit that, and so her previous train of thought was put on pause so she could follow a new one.  
  
"And you're making them choose. They're choosing you, Harper."  
  
"No," Harper replied quietly, stilling the room like Zoe had not thought possible. It was remarkable how a room full of inanimate objects such as scales and potion ingredients and stacks full of papers and wall lined with books always felt so alive when Harper was in here. And it was chilling how it had just as quickly returned to being static once again. Zoe rubbed her arms as goosepimples started to show; she hated.  
  
Turning away from her again, Harper leaned over his desk, resting his hands on the wooden frame.  
  
"Never tell a Brackner they can't have it all. The moment it looked like I was about to make them choose, they held on to him tighter. Alcott calls his uncle, Lyndsi runs into him at the Ministry- they won't choose. They'll have both."  
  
Zoe was only momentarily surprised that Harper knew that Lyndsea had run into Max recently. Then she realized that Lyndsea wouldn't have kept that from Harper, especially when there was a Ministry full of people who could have told Harper instead. Zoe had already bullied a gossip columnist from running a story  
  
Harper might have spent nearly a decade away from his family, and they all might have changed in his absence and as a general requirement that came with aging, but he still understood the way they worked.   
  
Zoe cleared her throat, and lifted her head.  
  
"And why shouldn't they? Why should they-"  
  
"What, have to switch one brother for the other? Again?"  
  
Zoe gritted her teeth, speaking slowly as she fought to keep composure. Patience was a virtue she rarely had time for. Virtues in general were things she didn't have time for.  
  
"It was never like that," she promised.  
  
"Well that's how it fucking feels," Harper spat out, jerking away from his desk and moving around it to a window. The panes were full of formulas and schematics written with dry-erase markers. Focusing on one proved to show a doodle of a man absorbing all the knowledge written on the glass, gaining a large head and eventually falling over. Years' worth of birthday cards let her know that was Alcott's handiwork. Similarly it was years of playing Pictionary against Harper that let her know that the adjacent doodle of the man distributing that knowledge so that his whole body grew proportionately was Harper's handiwork. For some reason he always drew his people with four fingers, something she had always teased him about. He was supposed to be a genius with an apt for details after all, so how did he always forget to add the opposable thumbs in a cartoon?  
  
Zoe wiped at her eyes quickly as he looked beyond the glass, forgetting entirely that in the falling nighttime he might be able to see a better reflection off the window. No amount of preparing would have left her able to go through the entire length of the conversation with her emotions intact.   
  
"But it wasn't like that, Harper," she tried to make him see, "they didn't substitute one brother for the other. Max could never and would never have been able to fill the void you left behind. And he never tried-,"  
  
Harper scoffed.  
  
"All these years all Lyndsea has ever wanted was you back. All Alcott's wanted was his father. Max helped them-,"  
  
"Of course," Harper interrupted again, "after all Max thinks his prick is some grand fucking cure-all-,"  
  
Zoe, however, didn't pause for long enough and despite that he was still talking, continued on with her point.  
  
"But he wasn't enough! Do you get that?!" Zoe's voice broke as she got it out. Breathing in and out through her mouth, as she couldn't trust her small nose to get the job done, Zoe took a step forward. Harper was still looking away from her, which only made her step closer to him, desperate for him to understand, to allow himself to understand.  
  
Gritting her teeth, Zoe wiped at her mouth before she continued.  
  
"Do you know how bloody infuriating, how heartbreaking it was, to watch Max basically put his life on hold to try and help his family -Lyndsea who used him and Alcott who hated him- and him being treated as if he wasn't enough simply because he wasn't you?"  
  
Zoe didn't think so. Harper was too wrapped up in his own hurt, and rightfully so, to ever fully understand his brother's. Zoe, however, understood it and had lived through it. She had been there for every single day after Harper had died and Max had stepped up. She and Max must have had the same, or similar, argument hundreds of times. Zoe had been a lot harsher with her words towards him than she was being now with Harper.   
  
Harper took body weight off the window, dropping the arm that had been leaning against it and looking over his shoulder as he snapped to Zoe, "That was a problem of his own doing."  
  
Look, something they agreed on.  
  
"You're right, and he wouldn't have done otherwise anyways. That was his responsibility."  
  
That word set Harper off again.  
  
"No, it wasn't! It was mine! I never asked him-,"  
  
"You were dead!"  
  
Zoe had all but shouted it. If she hadn't been grateful before that she had chosen to come at a time where Lyndsea wasn't around, she sure was now. Zoe only hoped that Alcott wasn't in the house either, and that his wolf hearing wasn't acutely picking up on every huffed exhaled, every agitated heartbeat, every jittery foot tap.  
  
Zoe passed a hand over her face again. She spoke quietly this time, needing to lower the volume significantly after her last outburst.  
  
"He picked up the ball, thinking you were never coming back. He made a mistake sleeping with Lyndsea, they both did." Zoe would never say otherwise.   
  
"A four year long mistake," Harper added in a hushed tone that Zoe barely picked up.  
  
Nodding, even unsure if Harper could see her, she asked, "would it hurt any less if it had only been one time?"  
  
The answer came quickly, in a gruff tone, "yes."  
  
Yeah, Zoe thought, right there with you buddy.  
  
"But would you be any less angry?," she challenged, "Or would you still be lashing out against him unfairly?"  
  
Harper finally turned around, affronted.  
  
"Are you telling me how to feel now?"  
  
"No. I'm not," Zoe assured him while simultaneously becoming exasperated that he kept missing her point, and by this point she knew it had to be purposefully, "I'm just trying to tell you, there's something other than anger to hold on to!"  
  
"Anger, pah, what do you know about anger?" Harper snapped, turning to look at her again with that cold steel in his eyes. She could detect no brown in his eyes, only black. He closed in on her like a snake might on its prey, and it took all of Zoe's willpower not to flinch, or worse rise to the challenge. It became even more difficult with his next words.  
  
"Gustav got a little handsy with you when you were a teenager, paid you too much attention and so you know about anger?"  
  
Zoe swallowed tight, dug her nails into her thighs through her jeans to prevent them from closing into fists. Harper knew exactly where to press to make it hurt. He knew her well enough, despite all these long years.  
  
"Or maybe it was finding out what Max and Lyndsi were up to! Realizing that suddenly you weren't the number one girl in his life anymore!," Zoe's jaws clenched and quivered painfully, but Harper was nowhere near finished.  
  
"Angry on his behalf for being unappreciated yeah right. He was moved in with -my- wife, helping to raise -my- son, in his childhood home, and there was no room for you! That's what pissed you off the most isn't it?! He wasn't good enough? You weren't good enough!"  
  
Harper scoffed, his words becoming mocking, "Did it teach you anger? Picturing them going at it in every room of this fucking manor? You don't know anything, Zoe! You've always been style over substance, because it's much easier to fake the former! You're vapid, shallow like a shower, you're a zero to the left: inconsequential. You're nothing but a semi-decent ribbon wrapped in a bow around a bag of hot air."  
  
By the time Harper had finished he was no more than eight inches from her face. Imposing, threatening, hostile; he was everything they had been to him down there. Soon enough, he would realize it. The recognition would come to his eyes and the loathing she saw there now would turn inwards, unless she shaped it onto a different path.  
  
So despite the fact that every limb was shaking, that her throat had run dry but her eyes mysteriously held all the water, and that she wanted nothing to do but slap him, Zoe lifted her head higher. She had prepared herself for this, but evidently not well enough. She had expected him to lash out, just hadn't expected him to be so good at it. He had been right. Caelesti had left him chockfull of ideas, because that's all he's known for this long. It was also why his gaze kept flicking down to her hands or her feet. He expected retaliation; he expected punishment. That was exactly why she couldn't.  
  
Swallowing on a dry throat for the umpteenth time, she finally spoke out.  
  
"Do you feel better?"  
  
"What?" Harper asked, clearly thrown.  
  
Swallowing again, she met her eyes, shining and wet, to his, "After attacking me, insulting me, belittling me, hurting me...do you feel any better than you did before?"  
  
He took a few steps back, but he said nothing. Recognition crossed his eyes like she knew it would, but all the anger and loathing instead of being reflected inwardly gave away, for now, for shock instead.  
  
"No, you don't," Zoe answered after his silence continued, her voice close to being even already, "I'll even wager that you feel worse. Harper, you don't have to lash out your anger like you do with Max. You don't even have to keep in your hurt like you do with Lyndsea. Most people think those are the only two options: lash out your feelings or let them stew inside you until they eventually bubble out, because they aren't. You can choose to let them go."  
  
Like I just did, arsehole, a little voice in her head spoke.   
  
Harper was less believing. Back to shaking his head, back to moving behind his desk, he scoffed.  
  
"It's not that easy," he said.  
  
"I never said it was easy, I just said it was possible. All of this anger eating you up inside won't go away until you let it go away. Until you are ready to hold on to better things. Because you're right." Zoe nodded, pursing her lips together as she took a shaky step forwards. Breathing in through her nose this time, she couldn't trust her mouth not to choke her with the weight of tension in the air, Zoe exhaled as her nods turned to shakes of her head.  
  
"Things will never be the same again. It's been nearly ten years, we've all changed, not just you. But you can all be a family again. And that's all you've really wanted, all I've ever wanted for all of you." Zoe put a hand over her chest, just now realizing how erratic it had become.   
  
Harper passed a hand over his face, his hand shaking before he purses his lips, looking at everywhere besides Zoe herself as he spoke, "So I'm supposed to just stop being angry with him? As if it's not that big a deal? That I should just go ahead, take another hit for my family, because I owe it to them to keep us all united?"  
  
"Because you owe it to yourself," Zoe explained with a hint of incredulity, "I'm not disagreeing with you Harper, it's a big fucking deal. If you could spare even half of the same understanding and forgiveness to Max over this as you do to Lyndsea, everything would be much easier."  
  
"For Max," Harper finished off with more than just a hint of bitterness.  
  
"For you! Harper," she takes a step closer to him, stopping herself when she realizes she can't take another one and that he wouldn't be able to bear her closer either.   
  
"I love you," she reminded him, reminded herself, "And despite what you may think, I wasn't only angry on Max's behalf, I was also angry at him for doing that to you, no matter if you were dead. There was no one more outraged than me, and it wasn't because of petty jealousy. Get to know me already."  
  
She sniffs, holding her chin higher, trying to save all that she could of her dignity.  
  
"And I tell you all this, not just because I want Max to be off the hook but because I want you to let yourself off the hook. Back there, you only needed your wife and your son to get through it, but now you need your whole family. Every single member of it. Especially your brother."  
  
If he hadn't been able to look at her before, now Harper couldn't stand to even face the same direction as she. He turned away from her once more, this time definitively. Zoe nodded to herself, swallowing a growing lump at the back of her throat.  
  
"I've said all I came to say. And then some. Please don't disregard it...I'll show myself out."  
  
Zoe walked out of his study at a brisk pace. She nearly ran over Jimmy on her way out, giving him a quick kiss and a half hug as she tried to keep him from looking at her too closely lest she see her eyes red and puffy. Once outside, she grabbed her helmet and all but jammed it on her head. After her hands had stopped shaking and her breathing returned to normal, she revved up her new bike and sped it out of there.

  
There, see? No harm, no foul.  
  



	16. Mercy

Lyndsea knew something had happened.

To be honest, there were too many things that might have set Harper off than she'd had time to learn yet, even if he'd been willing to share all of them. He wasn't, though, as many of his darkest memories he refused to allow to 'taint' her. She understands, as much as she wished to help him. It's important he be able to protect her from hell. Just like it's important to her she be able to take care of him when he looks ravaged and hurt and utterly lost as he does now.

So she drops the shopping bag uncaring at the door and asks permission to enter, then permission to hold him, teasing gently she just needs the reminder she's not dreaming - teasing he'll have to put up with her embracing him tightly every time she sees him just a little longer - and never once does she ask what happened.

That night she woke in darkness sudden and thinks, _I don't sleep through the night because I am not meant to sleep alone_. A moth trapped in the lamp near her bed buzzes incessant, as if it expects the light to come back on and kill it soon. Eyes laden with exhaustion, Lyndsea glares at the pitiful creature. How could such a small thing be shaking her bed? Didn't it know she needs to sleep? She shut her eyes, spiteful, lips drawn in the same pout Alcott used to give her when she insisted he finish brussel sprouts.  
  
Over her shoulder, a guttural groan startles her into remembering.  
  
Wasting time berating herself for confusing an insect with her husband, Lyndsea rolls over. Then ducks. A clenched fist, shaking and white-knuckled lands over her head, crumpling yellow strands and traps her. Widening her gaze as if she demands the moon outside give her more light, a vein strains over her eyelid, twisting the make-up she didn't bother removing. Harper never let her sleep with lipstick left anyway. Or at least, it wouldn't be on her own lips once they hit sheets and pillows.  
  
"Harper," she tries, but only gains another tiny gasp in response. Squirming to try and free her hair, she speaks softly against his back, her lips pressing into cloth raised by some scar he's masked. Hand pulling up to lay across his side, all she quells was her own calm. Beneath her palm he shakes as a leaf in wind, sending a chilling shot down her spine. A glance to the window affirms it isn't open. Yet Lyndsea wishes it was. That kind of cold could be cured with a blanket.  
  
His fist flies the other way. Seizing the freedom, she rises to her elbow, squeezing his side and sliding hand up to his shoulder as comfort. It moves in firm, slow circles but she keeps her grip gentle, like her mother did for her when she skinned a knee. It helped more when Alcott fell flat on his face in football practice than now; Harper only seemed to shake more, grow louder in shaky, uneven breath that rattles against his chest in her ear, knees curling under them both as if he means to fall to them. Incomprehensible mutters aside from "no" pepper his lips as her hand reaches the salt in his hair. Fingers lacing through the grey strands, she strokes as she did to put Alcott to sleep years ago desperate to comprehend his wrenched words on a raw throat until he voiced a word that sent the ice to her heart -- "Mercy."  
  
It did not take her husband's genius mind to guess what he dreamt of now.  
  
For a moment it's Lyndsi who shakes like their poor trapped moth. Ache strikes somewhere between her gut and heart hearing the soft plead. Her hand falls from his hair to stretch towards his cheek. Soft fingers barely grace the upturn of his lips before he's spat 'No' , sprayed their sheets and jerked his head to slam into his own crooked arm.  
  
Pillow spitting out in a bid for escape unwarranted, it seems to mock her as it lands on the ground. The case was smeared with her lipstick as much as his spittle, discarded and meek on the floor. It's the thought it wants to tell her that's where Harper thinks he should be that stills her quivering. His elbow hits her stomach as she snaps 'No' herself, but she ignores this, throwing a hand out herself to catch it from flailing further.  
  
Tense in her grip, Harper's spine seem to snap into place beneath her thumb, like one by one each vertebrae line up for war as soldiers, battered but not broken, wounded but not defeated.  
  
"Harper, shhh, I have you," she tries again, and again, murmurs as desperate as his, face as screwed up in kind with the same determined defiance he wears. Jerking with him as he rolls forward, Lyndsi falls, accidentally landing on top of him. Yet when she tries to disentangle herself, his fingers clench on her wrist, pulling her to lay over him. Her feet stick out from the sheets, her lingerie sticks to his cotton. The ebony silk she wore was torn ages ago, but his clothes were new, white. It pains her to see them rip from anything but her own nail.  
   
You're scaring me, she might have said, but the guilt for thinking it overwhelms. It rests on her throat a weight that has nothing to do with his death grip on her wrist. Tears well behind her eyes, pricking her nose to sniffle as she gasps again near his ear, "Harper, please, I have you, you're home, it's just a dream, wake up--", but he won't wake. Either she is too slight to move him at this awkward angle, or he's as trapped in the nightmare as she is by his grip.  
  
  
Maybe she doesn't mind. 'Dream' sounds like the wrong word to have used in the first place. Terror, that's a better one. One of Alcott's favorite books as a kid had been Dahl's BFG, or, "Big Friendly Giant." Where all the other giants snatched children from their beds to devour them, the BFG went around with giant butterfly nets to catch bad dreams and give good ones. Right now, she'd prefer any kid-chewing giant to whatever one would curse her husband with this terror. Mine, she could snap at the BFG, mine, you go away, you leave him be.  
  
"Please," she murmured as he jerked again, "it's me Harper," she forces herself to arrange against crude angles and hard edges until she's made a blanket of herself. They don't have you now, sweetling, I do. Lips near his ear, she presses a kiss into skin already hot and wet, though from his sweat or her tears she doesn't know. "It's me, it's Lyndsi."  
  
That stills him.  
  
In the shock of it, she forgets he hasn't woken up, forgets what memories he's trapped in, pleased, relieved, even smug her name could get through to him. As her spine unwinds her hands wrap around his shoulders and she repeats it on a tongue that felt thick, "It's Lyndsi, I have you" into the crook of his neck. The third murmur of her name draws from him a whimper.  
  
"Lyndsi," he echoes first and the nickname lingers in his mouth like he sucks on a candy, dry and sweet. The corner of his lips crack. Then he breathes out cold, another shot of ice straight to the center of her chest, "don't hurt her, please."  
  
Glassy-eyed as if in a flash flood, Lyndsea crumples back around him, shaking head, squishing nose into his neck and tightening her grip around him. Clutching him like she did the stuffed panda bear for all those years she was alone in the bed, it's small comfort now to know he doesn't shake. That was all they had to do, she realized. Speak her name, threaten to hurt her, and her husband stops fighting tooth and nail for freedom. Relief chokes her throat, and she dries her eyes against his shirt.  
  
Selfish, and guilty, and so grateful to him Lyndsi untangles gently to slip away. He lets her go. (He did anything they asked). Humble, she kneels on the ground to fetch his stained pillow. Forearm scrubbing it dry, the hardwood digs into her kneecaps, uncomfortable. A brief lift of her camisole tells her she'll have a bruise from where he struck her, but knowing Harper, he'd heal it with kisses as much as aloe before she got the lie "I fell" out. It's pitiful for penance, but it was all she could do and maybe it would be worse to throw away all he did to keep her from pain if she hurt now. Undeserving of his devotion as she is glad for it, she shakes her head, wrings both hands through her hair and lets wet, tugged ringlets fall back to wisps on her neck.  
  
Murmuring a quiet 'Thank you, luv' as she stands, she first lifts his neck as one might a doll, slipping the pillow underneath his head. "They didn't hurt me," she tells him, "You kept me safe."  
  
It feels like a lie on her throat, burns itself into her skin as she tugs the blankets free and lays them over him again. It hurt her to be without him. Yet he stays quiet -- she glimpses the corner of his mouth not disfigured even turn up as if to smile -- so she won't take it back.  
   
Instead she flits to the lamp first, rips up the shade until the moth flies free, then slides herself back into their bed. She rolls them until he clings to her too. His nose buried in her blonde strands and he breathes out her name until she's the one whose shivers are calmed by love.  
  



	17. On The Topic of Violent Retribution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm talking about the fact that you were in a situation where violent retribution was the only outlet you would have been offered."
> 
> Well, he hadn't blurted out 'did you blow up my car?', anyway. Brownie points?

Harper had to meet with his doctor to follow up on his health, despite the fact that he thought he was capable of taking care of himself now that he had the time and ability to do so, and more than capable of self-medicating. He did it more for his family's peace of mind, most notably his wife's and his mother's. He did have to insist however that he go to his appointment alone, as there were a couple of questions Harper had for his doctor that he would feel more comfortable asking (marginally) in complete privacy.  
  
Coat, scarf, and gloves on, half to avoid attention as well as keep him warm, he got off at a metro station along with a group of people all with earphones in, trying their best to ignore the world. Walking up the steps, he was three blocks away from the doctor's office. Checking his watch and seeing that he had enough time, he set himself to walk at a leisurely pace. The walk up the stairs from the station to the street had left him more winded than he cared to admit.  
  
Truth was, it didn't matter how many articles of clothing to mask himself he used - Max was always going to be able to tell it was his brother. Fifty feet or six inches between them, he'd know. That didn't stop him from second guessing himself as he spies him down the street through a haze of breath and squinty in the afternoon light. After nine years, he got used to seeing Harper everywhere. It was hard to remember his brother's visage wasn't a figment of his imagination...especially as he hasn't seen him in a month.  
  
(Zoe's eyebrows had told him that this morning over parfaits and coffee. As if he could have forgotten.)  
  
Honestly, he'd keep walking, he really would but Max wasn't entirely sure all of his eyebrow was grown back yet and seeing him...  
  
"Oi!" He calls out, shutting the door behind him and dropping shopping bag to hang on his wrist as he jogs so he could catch up to him.  
  
"Harper!" (That name sounds far from all right on his lips). Max didn't speak again until he was in front of him, "Can I talk to you for a minute?"  
  
Harper at first didn't look up because he was still getting used to being referred to by his name again. Once he realized belatedly someone was calling for him, and then a second later who it was, Harper hesitated over what to do next. He could very much just keep walking, and hope Max got the hint (because Harper's chances of outrunning him were slim), or he could stay put and hear what Max had to say, but given that he was the last person Harper wanted to see right now, the latter was an option he sorely didn't like.  
  
Ultimately however, he had to remember he was no longer in the business of cowering and hiding away.  
  
Pursing his lips together as Max reached him and wanted to talk to him, Harper merely raised his eyebrows and replied, "I'd prefer you didn't."  
  
"I just want to talk," Max responds instantly, trying to ignore the fact his gloved hands lift like he's surrendering. His elder brother's face still takes him by surprise, but he had enough training with trauma victims that it doesn't show. If he reacts...well, it's the hatred there that is most unfamiliar. Fists punch into his pockets and yank the jacket down to better ward off a chill.  
  
Biting down on his tongue hard he considers, on the other hand, it's that very hatred that drove him to want to talk. If Harper hadn't done it (he hopes it wasn't, might even beg for that to be true), they didn't have to talk long. Though, then again, if he had - and Harper wasn't his older brother who'd recently gone through hell - Max knew "talking" was fairly the last thing he'd do. Punch first, ask questions later, that's what Harper used to say his philosophy was, wasn't it?  
  
"Trust me, Max, no one is more surprised than I that you know more than twenty words, but I suggest chatting with the other chimps in your grammar school. I have somewhere to be." When Harper was about to take a step forward and around, maybe he would need two steps to make it around, Max persisted.  
  
Bitten tongue or not, he was going to talk.  
  
"I can walk with you." Max says, still trying for a 'calm tone', gesturing with his shoulder and swinging back around without ever looking from Harper's face. The corner of his lips perk up, but his face was scrunched with hopeless scruff and worry.  
  
Clenching his jaw, he gauged Max and upon realizing that he wasn't going to stop bothering him until Harper heard him out, he agreed with a jerk of a nod.  
  
"One minute," he reiterated, going back to the amount of time Max said he needed even if Harper knew he hadn't meant it quite so specifically. Well, tough.  
  
Then he started walking again.  
  
Max immediately turns to walk alongside, still trying to act as if he hadn't heard his brother call him a chimp (wasn't the worst he'd ever called him by a long shot. Hell, Max called himself worse too.) Rankled by it, maybe he was, but if anything he was focused on that to avoid focusing on the fact he didn't know how to ask his brother if he'd blown up his car. It felt like the kind of thing one didn't blurt out. Except they were Brackners, and blurting out was kind of his only play nine tenths of the time.  
  
"It's longer than a minute," Max argues instead, but his voice was only raised with worry; no anger (yet) in his eyes. "I get it, you hate me, and that's fine, but it doesn't mean I hate you." His steps were quickening as he speaks, wondering why his brother was insisting on winding them to talk, like they were racing, "I know what yo - rather, I don't know what you went through, that's the point, but I know that someone in your situation, adjusting after is difficult and I'm - I'm concerned."  
  
"Of course it is," he commented wryly, trying to contain an annoyance that was rooted too deep in actual causes. If he could keep this chat as the sole reason he wanted to push Max into oncoming traffic, then he wouldn't actually be tempted to do it because as far as reasons went, annoyed by a conversation was a poor one. Oh, but he had a very good reason as well didn't he? One that for the interest of not getting caught on the CCTV didn't exist for the remainder of this conversation. A conversation he was hoping to keep short.  
  
"I just took the underground, one of the most obnoxious, loud, rude, and crowded method of transportation that exists. Your concern is both unnecessary and unwelcome. Next time you want to ask how I'm doing, maybe get it from somebody else."  
  
"And that would be great-!," Max can't stop his hand from coming up with his shoulder as he makes his point, but he shoves it back in his pocket and grabs his keys as soon as he does. Maybe that would make him keep the hand still. "If I was talking about transportation, or people's rude comments, or claustrophobia, but I'm not."  
  
The latter he probably was a little, but only because it's all symptoms of a whole. Breathing heavy still as he looks back at Harper, he crosses the side street with him before finishing the thought. It took him that long to get the words 'unnecessary and unwelcome' out of his mind, but thankfully, Max knew he wasn't all that deep a thinker.  
  
"I'm talking about the fact that you were in a situation where violent retribution was the only outlet you would have been offered."  
  
Well, he hadn't blurted out 'did you blow up my car?', anyway. Brownie points? Or maybe leaping straight to judgment was worse, Max worries a second later before he thinks: when in the hell did he start thinking as hard as Harper did?  
  
Once they had crossed the street and Max revealed part of the reason he was 'concerned', Harper came to a stand-still. Whether it was a mixture of surprise or the sudden knowledge that Max wasn't exactly that far off the mark (he had just been contemplating pushing him into traffic after all), Harper swallowed, feeling like he had just been slapped.  
  
"So by concern, you weren't talking about me, you were talking about the object of my possible violent outlets."  
  
"No that's not--,"  
  
If Max was insinuating what he thought he was, Harper was going to show him exactly what kind of violent retribution he was capable of.  
  
"Cut the bullshit, Max."  
  
Max shut his mouth hard as he stops, teeth jamming together and locking in place, his chin lifting up. After a moment, he shakes his head. Shoulders drop as he nods with all the certainty he'd had at three when their mother was asking who ate the strawberries off her charity-event cake. _En bocas cerradas no entran moscas._ Flies cannot enter a closed mouth. Too late though, he'd already swallowed a half dozen with his first blurting.  
  
"Yeah, all right." Max said. His eyes met his brother's again, sans half an eyebrow (well, he thinks). "Except if I was only concerned about that, I'd wait until I had proof you did something, not want to talk to you first, Harper. It's not bullshit, bro, it's the fact I don't know how to talk to you if you're only giving me one minute and are looking at me as if it's me that is going to be the 'object of this violent retribution' if I keep talking."  
  
"Proof of what, exactly?" He asked, cutting through the rest of what he said with a sharp tone. Once again, Harper was finding himself listening to words that hit a little too close to home. As if he had no liable reason for not wanting to talk to Max for any longer than he had to. As if he had no liable reason to want to throw him into traffic, or onto the rails in the underground, or into a cage of man-eating lions. The last one wouldn't even be that difficult, he would just have to ask Hols for a favor.  
  
"You just might be if you don't answer me directly, Max. After all, like you're implying, I'm unhinged and likely to respond violently. Gee, I wonder exactly why I would want to rip your face off."  
  
"I was getting to that."  
  
Max grits his teeth. It cuts him off from responding harsher. Did he have a specific example? Yes, he did. On the other hand, even if that example proves false as he hopes, it didn't mean Harper wouldn't do it. It didn't mean his brother wouldn't do worse to someone else. Lyndsea might be willing to accept the 'terrible things he did' as being only in the past, but Max has more experience with trauma victims. Almost as much experience as she does with being willingly blind.  
  
"That's the one thing I don't wonder that at all," Max huffs, but his voice was taut with emotion. He didn't need to wonder. He had images in his head - of Alcott blowing out the candles on his ninth birthday, of Lynds undressed and unkempt, of the pair getting ice cream with him on the beach - images that should be Harper's alone. Images (particularly of Lyndsea) that were more than enough reason to provoke exactly the retribution they were talking about.  
  
"I don't wonder why you'd want to," Max said, "and I don't think you're unhinged. I do wonder, about the fact that my badge number was painted outside a house on fire, rife with traps for rescue workers. I do wonder about the fact that I'm missing half an eyebrow because my car blew up and the only reason I'm not dead right now, is because I had to stop to pee. That's what I'm wondering about, Harper."  
  
The revalation was enough to shock him into silence once more, Harper taking a step back, after not having realizing he had taken one forward to begin with. He processed exactly what Max had said slower than usual. His physical reflexes might very well be lacking, but something he had never lost was his mental acuity. He couldn't say that about nearly everything else about him or his life.  
  
Someone had made an attempt on his brother's life. That's what Max had said in more words than were actually necessary, but maybe that was Harper's recent desire to not know details which he didn't need or want to know. Usually he believed that a well-informed person was kept safer than one not but there were just some details that caused nothing but harm.  
  
"And you think I'm capable of that," Harper finally spoke after several extended moments of silence. Lifting his chin, he finally noticed the missing half of an eyebrow Max referred to. Harper had been too busy trying to avoid prolonged eye contact to really notice.  
  
"I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted that you believe I would go for theatrics. Fiery death traps, exploding car, do you think I'm a 1960s Bond villain?"  
  
After a short snort, Max shrugs a shoulder and looks skywards. How remarkably like a coward he was. His brother's face is marked by twisted scars, turning up his lips, skin still too pale and angry to be healthy - and he could look at that without flinching, Harper not seeming to notice. Yet his brother looks at his missing eyebrow and he flinches. Vain and stubborn, that was him. Lifting a hand to his face and rubbing harsh, hard, fast to clear his mind, Max drops it to slap his thigh and correct himself.  
  
"I know you're capable of it, Harper. I don't know if I believe it, but I know you are capable. A hell of a lot more than a Bond villain. I don't need specifics to know that anyone who survived nine years where you did had to be capable of killing someone. Nadia was there for five minutes compared to you. She still stabbed Al."  
  
His voice cut out as he hears the accusation echo, rigid and unforgiving. Dammit, Max thinks. Now he doesn't think before he speaks, really? Wasn't this the time to pour over every word he said?  
  
"Oh I'm capable of it," Harper agreed, not needing to be reminded all that he had done in (forced) service to the Caelestis all these years, and some which he had chosen to do all by himself. Max didn't even need to resort to too much of his imagination to wonder: he had walked in to see Gustav's dead corpse on the black dungeon floor.  
  
"I meant, you think I'm capable of betraying you like that?" His eyebrows rise pointedly, lips pursed briefly until he knew that when he released them they wouldn't be shaking.  
  
"Sure you just aren't confusing me with yourself?"  
  
Max blinks. It's been longer than one minute, he almost said. Better get going to the places you have to be. Only if he says that, if he lets his guilt get the better of him and the bitterness causes him to self implode, well, that'd likely be the last thing he ever had the opportunity to say to his brother. He doesn't want Harper to go to those places. He doesn't want him to go, period. He didn't want this to be so damn difficult to talk about either.  
  
"I think I don't know who you are, anymore. Anymore than you know me." Frost sprays off his lips as he breathes out heavily, gesturing out beside him with both hands. There was no point in trying to shove them away again.  
  
No, they didn't know who they were anymore, Harper didn't even know what they were to each other anymore because it wasn't anything near to resembling family. And despite Max's words, all that Harper heard, apart from the fact that Max's first reaction was to be 'concerned' for Harper when his life was threatened, was that Max had said nothing to suggest that he was mistake. Max had not said anything even remotely related to the fact that he regretted confronting Harper about this; that he should have known better.  
  
Because he didn't know any better, Harper reminded himself, because as Max just said, they didn't know each other anymore. And Harper was the guy whose 'only opportunity for retribution were violent outlets'.  
  
"And I don't think I have any enemies who actually want me dead. There's no arch villain out to get me, and por Los Dios, I am not Superman."  
  
"Why would anyone want you dead, everyone loves you after all," Harper smirks tight-lipped before he cleared his throat.  
  
"But mostly," Max lifts a shoulder, looking over it to the sign reading Bed and Breakfast nearby, squinty as he peers for answers in neon the establishment could never give, and then back, "I'm pretty damn sure that if you did done it, I understand why. I'm not going to the cops, or the pharm, I'm not telling Lyndsea, or madre --  I'm here," he says. That makes him look back around as he meets his brother's gaze finally able to look clear on without flinching. His hand hits his thigh again, pointing at the ground.  
  
"I'm here, and I wasn't lying when I said I'm concerned for you."  
  
"You're here...because you think, or at least entertained the notion for long enough, that I put you and your men in danger, that I blew up your car! That I tried to kill you!" His voice spiked higher as the anger that he had been withholding slipped through the numerous cracks in the shamble of a wall that was left of his defenses. People walking by gave them a wide berth now.  
  
"Why am I suddenly the one being side-eyed, when it was you who lost my trust, not the other way around?! Someone wants you dead out there, and," he scoffs, a bitter laugh leaving his lips as he tilts his head, "you're here?! Take that concern and shove it up your arse."  
  
The way he says 'someone' wants him dead makes Max wince again even as his spine straightens, tense like each vertebrae was splitting itself into place. Truthfully, however much he wants it to be true that Harper - that his big brother - had not tried to kill him, he was not ready to accept the fact this meant someone else was trying to kill him.  
  
Tongue protesting being sliced in half, Max feels his mouth snap open as he takes a quick burst of a gasp of air. Maybe it's because his mouth is already open, but he speaks even when it's most likely not a great idea to do so.  
  
"Actually," he corrects, "I happened to see you come out of that metro and yeah, couldn't keep my mouth shut any further. I didn't come charging over to your house Harper your house, even though it's been four days since my car caught flame. And," he trails off realizing, "you didn't even know it happened, did you? Your son does, Al called to ask if I was all right."  
  
He's not even sure why he's saying that but the fact is almost a relief to Max. He wasn't the sort of guy who thinks first; at least he finally was acting like himself again and if his brother has a problem with it, at least Harper was seeing who he 'is' now. Instead of the intentionally trust-destroying bastard punching bag he was just so intent on making Max be.  
  
"I'm not side-eying you, I'm asking! You're right, you never lost my trust, but it's a decade later. I know why, you think I'm still an irresponsible, reckless, whore but you also refuse to speak to me, so I have no chance, none, to prove otherwise to you."  
  
Glove flying with his words, he drops his voice and takes a step closer to his brother, feeling guilty as he sees the amount of people stepping away.  
  
"And respectfully brother, no." It was flat. "You can't tell me not to be worried about you, you can't tell me not to care, you might be able to act like I'm not your brother - but I can't!"  
  
His hand hits his chest. His voice drops even further, choked, "I won't."  
  
No he hadn't known, and he knew very well why not either. It had become a silent agreement to not even mention Max to him, and for damn good reason. If something had happened, then yes he would have been alerted. As it was, no harm, no foul. Or so he was sticking to believing anyways.  
  
"You're not asking! You're insinuating and then you're telling me you're concerned, asking would have involved 'hey Harper, quick question, did you happen to blow up my car in revenge?' And I would have answered 'go fuck yourself' because the fact that you need to ask is insulting. Do you want me to provide an alibi for that time too? I've hardly been alone since I got here so that shouldn't be too difficult to scrounge up for you."  
  
Passing a hand over his face, his voice drops lower as he hisses in response, "I don't want to know you anymore, I don't want you to prove yourself! I don't want to see you! I don't want to hear about you! I'm not ready to forgive you and I never will be! You hurt me-," he cuts off with a little inhale of breath, blinking repeatedly as he takes a step back.  
  
"Worry, care, be concerned, do whatever the bleeding fuck strikes your fancy, Max," he spat out, "just do it away from me."  
  
"Yeah I know you would have said that, don't you think that's exactly why I didn't ask? I didn't want to attack you with it, dammit!" Yeah, because that definitely sounded like he didn't. Max takes a step back too. At least he isn't paying attention to the people in the square either anymore. He rocks back on his heels like his brother had taken another punch at him.  
  
There's a beat after and Max turns, feeling tears well up behind his eyes hard and fast enough that he shuts them, raising hands to his forehead and gloves running back through his short crop of hair. It flops back. He never could fit straight.  
  
Max spins back, but this time he doesn't take a step closer. He just asks, hopeless and regretful, hand in the air, "You realize all I did was ask if we could talk, and you immediately act like I'm the devil incarnate come up to you? I didn't ask, Harper, because if I did, it would have meant I believed it enough to accuse you of it, and I can't."  
  
Harper pursed his lips, shaking with every single new sentence Max provided to explain himself. Everything he said was lacking; it just wasn't good enough as far as Harper was concerned. Any explanation, any reasoning, it just wasn't enough. That didn't change no matter how many steps Max took towards him and then away from him, looking as agitated as Harper was.  
  
"Oh no, you've seen what I've done to who I thought was the devil incarnate," he raised in quick defiance once he found himself too quiet in comparison.  
  
"But more than that, I wanted you to know first before I did ask that you could have tried to kill me, and I still wouldn't have turned you in. But great. Great," he holds up both hands again and says easily (like hell), "you got it, I'm gone. Just tell me this first. Tell me you wish they succeeded in killing me."  
  
Going still again, Harper inhaled and exhaled through his nose, forcing himself to look at Max again, his teeth gritting.  
  
"I don't want you dead, Max," he revealed but after letting a beat pass he added, "but as far as I'm concerned, you're already dead to me."  
  
Max steels his lip, narrows his eyes as if he has at once no trouble believing it and every struggle to comprehend it but he still says back, "Yeah? Good. Maybe you'll get some idea how it felt for me stuck here then."  
  
Harper stepped around Max, walking away quickly before he had the chance to regret it.  
  
Max watches him go.  
  
  
  



	18. Special Brand of Therapizing

."A chill of refrigerated ice struck his face as he opened the door with a squelch, reminding Max he needed to change the filter. How many times had Zoe reminded him to do it? Probably about as many times as she had asked him not to eat her peach yogurt. Hand half-closed around the last one, he paused visibly, screwing up his bottom lip. Then he heard her heel on the top of their swivel stairs, grabbed an actual peach in place of the yogurt and found himself talking.  
  
"Thanks, by the way." Great, that sounded sarcastic. Shrugging a shoulder half-hearted, Max spun to make eye contact. That way she could be sure to know he was being his usual abashed-awkward-honest self, not his usual smug-smartass-jerk self.   
  
"For not saying 'I told you so', I mean," he spoke while he dug his teeth into the peach and squelched the door shut again. "You were right a hundred times at least, but the fact that I could still come here without you saying a word about it - just, thanks."  
  
She had to find a way to put an alarm system on her yogurts. That or maybe just buy extra and write 'Max' in permanent marker. He didn't fool her grabbing the peach instead but she decided she would let it slide this time after hearing him start with a thank you. It didn't serve to lower her eyebrows at first but the glare turned into a confused expression until he had explained himself.  
  
Putting her wet hair over one shoulder, she reached the bottom of her spiral staircase by the time he had finished his thank you.   
  
"I got your back, Max. Always, you know that. You don't have to thank me- quietly marvel at my excellent self-restraint, sure knock yourself out. You alright?"  
  
Distractedly, gaze passing over her wet hair, Max seems to half-listen, half preemptively follow her directions to the letter as he quietly marvels at her. It's not like he was against knocking himself out. Taking the few steps back to the counter so he could lean, rest his bare arms as he spoke. Cotton sticks to cool marble raising a few inches of the shirt off his torso. It's a welcome relief.   
  
"Yeah, just fine. I mean, nothing's changed." That was a much more accurate statement. He rubs over the half-grown eyebrow with fingers dripping peach juice. "I ran into Harper on the street," he finally admits quieter, "and couldn't help asking him if he knew something about my car."  
  
She opens the refrigerator as well, grabbing a yogurt purposefully before taking a spoon from the sink, rinsing it before mixing the yogurt with it. She hated the transparent liquid that formed at the top.  
  
"Oh," she restrained a wince and ate a spoonful of yogurt to help her. She didn't think Harper would do that, despite how furious he was with Max at the moment. She didn't blame Max for asking Harper about it though, the timing was, well, too close to ignore.  
  
"So if nothing's changed does that mean nothing's worse?"   
  
"Well, I say nothing changed, I guess I should say, it's swapped equally, instead," Max says, sardonic tone slipping in for all his good intentions with this conversation. Ah! Just like when he spoke to Harper then. "I'm the dead one now."  
  
He says this perfectly politely, tone the same as when he asked Zoe to pick the peach he held up at the grocery store. Then he consumes the peach near whole, sucking juice off the tip of his thumb and finally twisting to look at her as she crossed behind him. "I mean, to him. He said he doesn't wish me dead but as far as he's concerned I am to him."  
  
Zoe cursed under her breath and then decided she needed it say it aloud as well, "Bollocks." She reached over to put a hand over his own before remembering how sticky it was and then picked up a hand towel and wet it with warm water and passed him that instead.  
  
"He doesn't mean that. You're still his brother and you were almost killed-- he can't mean that."  
  
Catching the towel with muted thanks and half of a chuckle, he tosses the pitch pit to the trash. Ten points.   
  
Then he laughs again, wiping his hands off as he shakes his head, "Oh, he meant it. I won't-- they didn't listen to him for years, I'm not going to not believe him. Besides, he might think it'll be easier for him if I was dead but the truth is - have I got a prayer if he doesn't eventually come to think he does want me to be his brother again? Whether or not I'm there to change his mind? He has to want it.   
  
And," and his voice quieted, as Max couldn't help but be a little ashamed about this point, "truthfully, I'm sick of seeing the way he looks at me anyway."  
  
Zoe pursed her lips, begrudgingly admitting to herself that doubting Harper's words was definitely a bad choice but how else was she going to react? Accept that all of this was actually happening? She felt sick just thinking about it.  
  
She rubbed at her eyes, "Haven't we all spent enough time proving absence does not make the heart grow fonder? Ugh," she took a bite of yogurt so she wouldn't say what complete utter bullshit she thought this was.  
  
"It did until I screwed his wife." Max says with false cheer, crossing his feet, twisting torso, and leaning his back against the counter now. Otherwise he was going to get a crick in his neck. Throwing both hands up with his "well!", he shook his head again and looked at his feet. It wasn't until he shrugged his shoulders again that he adds, "So, thank you for not saying I told you so. Because, you were right, I shouldn't have ever -- well."   
  
Max smirks, to hide the twist in his gut, "Slept with Lynds. She never really wanted me anyway, and you know, I can't figure out anymore if I ever wanted -her-. I just...she got it, she understood, she'd made her life around him too, when he was gone...nothing made any sense. Gah. It is too early in the morning for this." He rubs over his eyes again and then simply sits on the counter.   
  
"This is what I get for thinking sex should always be the answer. Mhm." Sardonic or not, he tilts his head and smirks at the truth.  
  
Another spoonful of yogurt to keep her mouth shut. After all, he was grateful that she hadn't said anything about it (now, because heavens knew, they both knew, she'd had a lot to say about it before), and it would be shit to start now.  
  
"Parts of you wanted each other," she said as idly as she could muster, licking yogurt off the back of her spoon as if it were the most interesting thing here.  
  
"Sex is never the answer Max," she said very truthfully and then smirked at him, "sex is the question. Yes is the answer. Although in your case, yeah, it should have been 'no'."  
  
Though he winced to hear it, Max was actually grateful. Yes, it was true, they had. Hard to remember he once was relieved to know Lynds was home after a double-shift, to know he would have food and a bed and her. But even so, he was hardpressed to say it was worth it either. Unsure why Zoe was defending him - she'd always been against it, and here they were swapping places - he shook his head and clapped his hands together as he looks up from his feet.  
  
"Love that song." It was as idle as her comment had been. "Though yeah, I think I've said yes one too many times."  
  
To everyone, actually, but.  
  
"You're a secret people pleaser. Outwardly you may put up a front of having 'Things To Do: Not Give A Fuck' on a list, but really you care lots," she nodded with the spoon still in her mouth. Popping it out, she then pointed at him with it, like a conductor might wave their little baton.  
  
"You're a selfless twat disguised as a selfish cock, made easier by the fact that of course you benefit from a therapeutic shag. And this is generally speaking," she nodded, scooping up more yogurt into her mouth.  
  
"So should I be flattered or offended?" She asked offhand, looking down at her yogurt for a moment when she realized her mouth ran away from her. Bugger it.   
  
It was a fair description of him. Smile sheepish and shrug abashed - wait that might have been the other way around - he was about to point out it might all be true, but he was loveable all the same (certainly fuckable, hence the problem in the first place) when she sidetracked him.  
  
"Flattered or offended?" Max echoes, confusion etched on his puppy face in squiggly wrinkles and furrows. Zoe had no reason to be either, though Lynds probably had reason to be both. It wasn't that he was calling her a heartless user, really, he wasn't, except she kind of was. It was the loss of his friendship with her hurt the most keenly (worse even than his brother's glares); it was a pain some where in his lower shoulder blade. Or maybe that was the injury at Notre Dame, but he'd looked at the lingering bruise in the shower the other day and dubbed it Lynds. It fit in his mind. He'd fucked up, but so had she, so of course she'd left him bruised...  
  
But why should Zoe be offended by that?  
  
"By what?"   
  
She had half a mind to just tell him to forget it but then she wouldn't have been Zoe Noel. And ignoring it would have just given it more power than it really had because she was just pulling his leg, really. Then again the joke wasn't funny any more now that she had to explain it.  
  
"That you haven't tried to therapize me with your cock," she explained in the terms she had used a moment before. She brought the yogurt closer to her face as she ate, maybe to diminish the time it took for the spoon to travel to her mouth.   
  
Max felt like that spoon-baton struck his face.  
  
"I ...what?" he stutters, and it is not his voice which slips from his lips, not the voice of a man secure in his knowledge of women.  
  
Brows still furrowed and cheeks still wiggly, he tries to cough until it's own voice that answers her.   
  
"I didn't think you..."  
  
Oh fuck, that voice was his own all right, awkward and sheepish and definitely not about to admit that Zoe was right about something. Closing his eyes to rub over them again hard with his tenth headshake of the hour, he finally bit out, "Flattered. I've fucked up every relationship with girls I have ever had - literally, I'm hopeless." He had, they were just discussing it. "The only two who have ever stuck around are Lyndsea and you and my cock fucked that up too. Not that she's a that, not- oh bugger."  
  
Max's hand drops and he hops off the counter.  
  
"You're my girl," he mumbled a little quieter, keenly aware of how fast his heart was beating, "You know that."  
  
Zoe almost laughed but recognized that one, that would be mean, two, she laughed whenever she was faced with uncomfortable situations and third that the sudden squeezing feeling in her chest was not a sign of laughter. Then again that last one just made her want to laugh more to spite it. What was also pretty funny is how much Max sounded like the imitation Bianca had done several nights ago.  
  
"Don't pop a blood vessel, Max, I'm teasing you," she got out, shaking her head and managed a chuckle and not at his expense! Look at that, Zoe was made of miracles.  
  
She would be getting back to the whole 'cock cocking up his relationship with Lyndsea' bit, but for now, against all better judgment she couldn't let the subject drop. Given that Max had so accurately, albeit unknowingly, mirrored their friend and coworker, Zoe thought she would take a whack at it.  
  
"So you seriously have never thought about it?"  
  
Teasing him? Was she? Far from being relieved, now Max felt even more confused. And definitely like he was going to steal a peach yogurt after all, or else maybe he'd be getting one when it was in the hospital. They give yogurt to patients of cardiac arrest, don't they? If Zoe had meant it as a joke...  
  
But then her questioned sidetracked him again, the sudden clench against his chest uncomfortable in a very addicting way. Troubled, Max lowered his brows to pull his gaze back to hers. Well, if she could tease, so could he.   
  
"Well, maybe a time or two...in the shower...when I'm feeling a little tense...” Max trails off, wiggling his eyebrows with innuendo.   
  
"Oh, you, gros-" Zoe used her spoon to throw peach yogurt at his face, groaning and rolling her eyes before laughing once. Then she went back to groaning again, rubbing her face.  
  
"The shower- please not my shower! I just came from there- what have I been bathing in?!" She threw the whole spoon at him this time. Suddenly she became very much aware that this was the first time she was sharing a bathroom with a guy for more than an overnight stay and consequently felt the need to clean again despite the fact Max wasn't a slob.  
  
"I am neither flattered or insulted, I take it back."  
  
Anyways, she had her answer after all. Stupid Bianca, thinking otherwise and trying to get all these ideas in her head. Clearly, Zoe and Max were on the same page, obviously.  
  
"Oi-!" Max combines his laugh and groan as yogurt splatters cheek and tongue. The second time he was ready; when she whipped the spoon, it lands in his wide-open mouth, smackimg teeth and painting him in the fruit. Wiping with both hands to clear his eyes, he laughs back in much awkward relief, "I do approve of the metaphor and all, but shouldn't it be on your face, not mine?"  
  
And then he ducks, and runs back around the counter again. Zoe was no less crude than he, but if he could only choose one of them, she was the more righteously vengeful.   
  
Why righteous? Well, he might not have been...completely, teasing her with his innuendo. Not...completely. Zoe was a beautiful woman, and besides! They had shared twins in Bali, those twins talked to each other! As they were discussing, Max was a red-blooded male, fully incapable of much if any restraint, so, sue him. (Except don't, because he really wouldn't be able to afford it.)  
  
She was about to remark his impressive it was that he actually managed to catch the spoon in his mouth before he made another comment that made her laugh even harder. As gross as she accused Max of being moments before, there was little else that made her laugh harder.  
  
By the time she was reaching forward to smack him anyways (hey, actions and consequences!), Max was widely out of reach.  
  
"How dare you soil the name of good yogurt that way?! Nasty bugger."   
  
Still running around the counter to avoid her hand (even if she was laughing, he knew her better than to think she would just forget it) - he bats it away, then raises both hands as if to say 'can't touch this'. Even though, really she could, if she wanted, but she wasn't being serious, so he wasn't going to bring that up again. At least not yet. Then he dropped the spoon into the sink, hangs over it backwards and turns it on to start cleaning both yogurt and peach juice off his hands and face.  
  
"Yup. That's me, nasty bugger. So see, you wouldn't want me to therapize you anyway -" whoops, he brought it up, okay, time for a quick exit.   
  
-"Though speaking of shower, I'm going to hit it up, then uh, you want to go to the gym today? I'll spot you," he smirks and then adds under his breath, "if you'll spot me?"  
  
Smooth, definitely.   
  
Before she even had a chance to come up with a response, Max continued talking and for that he was grateful. She wasn't sure how she could respond to that without potentially insulting him or lying or making it awkward, so instead she shook her head and exhaled in the constant exasperation that was being Max's friend.   
  
"Gym then shower, because that makes all the sense in the world," she sighed and then shrugged, "sure. And by spot you, I mean I will let you fall flat on your arse and let the weight bar choke your neck while I do squats on your chest." She smiled sweetly, giving him a thumbs up.  
  
As he was halfway up the stairs however, she remembered and turned.  
  
"By the way, your cock didn't fuck things up between you and Lyndsea. And it wasn't her cunt either, despite how often the two saw of each other-," that didn't sound bitter at all, just sincere, "your wounded grieving hearts did. And it's not permanent. Give yourself a break and keep the emotional wanking to a minimum, yeah? And the actual wanking out of my shower."  
  
Then she turned towards the sink, reaching for the sponge and the detergent, making it clear he shouldn't stress himself to find a response, but neither should he disregard completely what she said.   
  
Er, so once again Zoe was right: since when did someone get showered before working out? If he was being honest? Answer, when that someone needs out of a conversation where they put there foot in their mouth dozens of times. So, Max actually had argued the merits of working out freshly clean lots of times before! Right now he just shrugs, mind still clouded with confusion.  
  
At least until she said that. Slowing his retreat half-up the spiral, he stops all together by the time she finished, his feet hovering over the top step. Looking at it and staring hard at the trainer's scuff marks, Max nods to himself, fervently, bottom lip threatening to tremor. Grieving, wounded hearts was right. Once, Max had thoroughly believed his brother would have wanted him to be happy in the end, but now he knew that was only true when it came to Lyndsea. Max couldn't blame Harper; maybe it would have been true had he really been dead, not waiting and fighting tooth and nail against horrendous, murderous assholes to get back to her. Under those circumstances, who could blame Harper, coming home only to think he had to compete with his brother for her affections?  
  
(As if that wasn't literally the truly most laughable, ridiculous, insane untrue idea Max had ever heard. Compete with him? Even if it had been, as if Lynds would pick him over the father of her child and the man who beat death to win her back? -Really- now, wasn't his brother supposed to be a genius?)  
  
But it was the fact Zoe was saying it that still meant the most to Max. His hand clenched on cool metal as he spins his head to look back down at her, he meets her gaze dead on. Then he nods again, this time grateful his bottom lip was steady, his eyes clear.  
  
"Yeah, a'ight. I'll keep it in mind. To be honest, it's for their sake I hope he realizes she's no saint. Long as he has her on that pedestal...no one can live up to that, and both of them...will just end up alone." He grits his teeth, making it perfectly clear how much he didn't believe his brother deserved that. Lynds, well, who knew better than Max how poorly she did alone? It was about as bad as he did with it. But he wasn't alone, that's what Zoe was making clear right now, for all his awkwardness, sheepishness, crassness?  
  
Chewing tongue for a moment, he clears his throat and calls back after her, "Just so you know...there is nothing I'd -need- to therapize with you, Steel. You take much better care of me than...you've been my rock.  I really don't know what I would do without you. And with that," he claps his hands together and smirks, brighter for having said that, "emotional wanking moment done, off to shower, back in ten."  
  
And Max scoots off.


	19. Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...as I am yours, you are mine.

There was a fire going when he walked in, which Lyndsea was staring at wondering idly if it was in poor taste. The burns on her arm had long faded under the watchful eye of 'Doctor' Harper. Yet it was hard to get the image of the Cathedral burning out of mind, harder still to reconcile that Max's car had imploded. Terribly, Lyndsea was grateful she hadn't been there to see it, though there was likely few things anymore she hadn't seen before. This house was old, centuries so, converted from an old Parish church once upon a time to be bestowed on a knight as he was made Lord. In a winter like this, with spring feeling ever more on the horizon, the draft needed something to combat it, and so the flames. Perhaps if it had been Harper and not Jimmy to light it, she wouldn't be chewing her lip in front of it or tearing a forgotten invitation to pieces, but she forgets all this when her husbands footsteps enter. Lyndsi stands.  
  
Then turns, so she faces him across a room that was a lesser dining hall for the nuns and now was home to a game room- pool table, darts, whiskey cabinets. Smiling unconsciously, for any sight of Harper walking in to a room couldn't be answered by her without some joy however short or anguished, Lyndsea takes a few steps to close the cavernous distance and kisses his cheek. Then she takes a step back, breathes out hard, and speaks quietly, but steady.  
  
"I need to tell you something. It's nothing you don't already know, nothing...new, just...something I haven't said aloud. And I need to. I need you to hear it from me, and I need to say it. And," her lips flutter in a ghost of a sad smirk, "I don't...want you to interrupt me or tell me not to feel bad about it because as much as I appreciate it, Harper, and I love you for it, you shouldn't have to protect me from this. Okay?"  
  
Her breath is quiet.  
  
The conversation with Zoe had been weighing on his mind for several days now. Much as he tried to put it aside, any moment in which he wasn't occupied with his son or his wife or his work, or anything else, his thoughts drifted towards it. He regretted being harsh with her at the end almost immediately, but could not bring himself to apologize. He had been doing enough of that, and didn't fancy going back to it.  
  
Lyndsi could still read his face, no matter how scarred it was. She saw immediately that something had troubled him when she returned, but he supposed there was no shortage of troubling triggers for him. He was glad she didn't ask, because he would have told her. And it was his understanding that the two women had only recently gone back to more than just being civil with each other.  
  
He had been thinking about the conversation (it seemed a kinder word to use than shouting match) when he walked in to the game room to find his wife sitting. He smiled immediately even as he could tell there were things weighing on her mind as well. Her next words confirmed it.  
  
Licking lips that went dry, he nodded after some hesitance and moved them to sit again. He had a feeling he would be needing to seat.  
  
"Okay," he spoke just as quietly, keeping her gaze.  
  
It seems for all her failings, Lyndsi did still have his trust completely. Not so much as a flinch belied his hesitance, even if it was clear in his gaze. Who wouldn't be wary of any 'important' information from his position? Harper had lived tense for so long he forgot how to unclench; every brief flutter of a hand near him might be an oncoming punch, every word a new loss, and he treats them as such. It was why she lets him sit on the couch but moves in front of him, taking one of his hands as she rests against the coffee table. Keeping her gaze steady on his, she takes a deep breath before speaking.  
  
"I should have waited for you." Her throat sticks almost immediately, clogged on years of mistakes, regrets, and memories of Max she should not have, no longer wanted to have. Considering what a comfort they had once been, the fact they curdled like spoilt milk in her stomach and throat only makes what she has to say, all the more important.  
  
"That's how the story is supposed to go," her heart rate leaps, and her knuckles turn white on her knee-cap, "I'm supposed to wait for you. You did. You did it right Harper, you did everything you could, and I didn't. I gave up for a little while. I wasn't there for you, I wasn't there for our son, and it was-" her nose was clogging too now and she had to shut her eyes, sniffle back and hold on to breath to prevent anything besides words bubbling out in her grief.  
  
But she needed to say this. She needed him to know she understood his anger, that he did have a right to feel like she failed him even if it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, and she had. That was what made it hurt so damn much.  
  
"-it was me," when she finally gets it out, her voice and eyes are oddly dry. "I was the one. It wasn't Max," she waits for his hitched breath for daring to say his name and yet she had to say it, because the more he pretends Max's name was taboo , the longer he was going to keep hurting over all of this, "it was me. And I'm just so sorry."  
  
It took all his willpower not to break his promise and stop her right then. He could feel her name forming on his lips almost instantly, but ultimately had to thank the constricting pressure on his chest that prevented any words from coming out.   
  
His eyes watered almost immediately, betraying how poignant the hurt was after continually saying he could not blame her. And he couldn't, even now as she expressively told him she couldn't help but to blame herself. That somehow despite everything she should have waited.   
  
He wrung his hands together, lips pursed so hard they almost disappeared from his face entirely.  
  
Zoe had said the same; Lyndsea asked Max to move in, Lyndsea initiated 'the whole thing' (a kinder word for affair, yet still more accurate than it he supposed). Lyndsi herself said it now, taking the blame on her own shoulders. Could anyone blame him for trying to protect him from that? He knew better than most how crippling guilt could be. Harper didn't want her to deal with it.  
  
He brings a hand to his face, partially to pry apart his lips. He rubbed the lifted corner of his mouth and sniffed once.  
  
"Do you...want me, to be angry with you? Is that what you need? Because I can't, even knowing maybe I should. I don't want to be angry with you."  
  
If anything might have stopped her, it was that expression. Harper looked as if every word she spoke was a knife she jammed further into him. He should know. As he takes his hands back to rub tears away she lets him, screwing her nose up and pushing tears off her own cheeks.   
  
"I can't -- ", Lyndsi sits up straighter as she decides that was quite the wrong word, and what was she doing if not speaking the most exact truth she could possibly say? "--no, I won't. I won't tell you how to feel, husband."  
  
Although maybe that word was purposefully a little manipulative. Maybe she does want him to remember above all else they were husband and wife, even if it had been almost seventeen years since their vows. It had never stopped being true. Death didn't divorce them, it was her unknowing adultury that lay between them. More importantly it was laying between her husband and his brother. Thank heavens she had at least the sense not to say that now, as...well, "laying" was an insensitive word.  
  
"If you won't be angry with me," she adds quietly, "then thank you. But I needed you to hear the truth, Harper. I need you to know I wish I had waited for you. That this is the reality. I'm not perfect, oh," she shakes her head cracking half a smile abruptly and clapping freed hand over her lips, "I am so far from perfect, Harper."  
  
Her hand drops from her lips abruptly, falls flat to her lap. The pink lips press together. Lyndsi won't steal them from his sight again.  
  
"I hurt you," she says it quietly through those pink, pressed lips, "and I know Max did too, that it takes two, but that's the point. Two. Max, and me. I am to blame. Not completely, not wholly, not the worst person in the world, I'm just flawed. Just human. And your wife. Always that, so long as you'll have me."  
  
That was quieter, but the small smile was back as much as she could muster it.   
  
"I understand why you need me to be perfect," Lyndsi adds leaning forward to take his hand again, "the image you hung on to, and I am glad, so glad, that I could have helped in any small way I might have. But isn't it better that I'm real now?"   
  
This she asks hesitantly, her thumb gently tracing the scar on his wrist. Her gaze drops a moment before lifting stubborn.   
  
"Isn't it better that you can touch me now? Hold me? Kiss me?"   
  
"I know the reality, Lyndsi, I know I'm not in that dungeon anymore, that I don't have to cling to memories, I know that," he nodded once, head jerking briefly, "same way I know yes, you made a mistake. You're human. None of it makes you any less perfect in my eyes." That was how it went; it was true as day.  
  
"I don't need you to be anything but yourself because that's the woman I love. That's the woman I get the privilege again to fall in love with every day," he chuckles briefly, looking at their hands for a moment before shaking his head incredulous.  
  
"Of course it is, a million times over, but the reason I'm not angry at you isn't that I ignore it because you can do no wrong. The reason is that if I couldn't forgive you for what you did, how could I expect you to do the same for me? And no I don't want to be angry with you, I know the kind of man I turn into when I am and you don't deserve that, no matter what you did. I don't like being angry either," his voice cracked at the end. His gaze dropped once more as he shook his head again and repeated, his eyes glassy.  
  
"I don't like being angry."  
  
“Only you are.”   
  
Lyndsea spoke soft, but there was no denying her words, else she’d be guilty of ignoring the same reality she’d just decided for them to face. This wasn’t wholly about her affair, this wasn’t wholly about the people they were, and it wasn’t wholly about the fact they still hadn’t had sex, or that there relationship felt both stronger than ever and irreparably broken at the same time. Lifting her free hand to tuck a strand of hair back behind her ear, she repeats the statement. Her gaze was steady, her hand strong in his grasp, thumb still holding his pulse.  
  
“You are angry, Harper. Wanting to let go of that is…wonderful, but it’s not enough if you pretend you aren’t. I know you said the only thing you need from me is that I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere, but that isn’t the only thing you need from me.” She drops her hand to lay over his other one too now, leaning elbows to dig into her knees, squeezing to reassure them both. “You need me to stay calm, when you see something that reminds you of where you were. You need me to be able to look at these,” she frees one hand to gently trace the scar across his throat, speaking as her thumb passes over his gullet mid-swallow, “and not flinch away from you.”   
  
Lyndsea leans closer. She hasn’t blinked in at least a minute and a half, but damn the water in her eyes, she wasn’t starting now.  
  
“You need me to smile,” she does, “you need me to be happy, and you need to know that you protected me. You need me to forgive you, for killing and torturing innocent teenagers, and,” she hesitates only briefly, teeth on her tongue, “perhaps more you won’t tell me about. You need me to tell reporters to go away, to tell family to stop bothering you, to shut the door on people and show you it locked. You need me to remind you to eat, to make appointments for you with the Doctors, to listen to you when you point out why you know more than each and everyone of them. You’re right, and you do, and I will. I will, joyously, husband. It’s what marriage is, day in, day out. But there are things I need from you too.”   
  
The hesitation on her face was minute, but vivid to someone who had such a habit of staring at her. Gently, she stands, but only far enough so that she can kneel now between where his legs split on the couch. Resting elbows on his thighs, she lowers their hands to cross over his lap, toying with his fingers and seeming transfixed by it. Silence stretches long enough for the fire to crackle behind her, remind them both that another log should be added to it, if they’d deign to get up.  
  
They don’t.  
  
“I need you to do more than forgive me, Harper. I need you to try and forgive Max, and,” she squeezes his hands, feeling the clench of his knees on her shoulders, “and I need you more importantly, to try and forgive yourself.”   
  
Now she looks up at him, voice low heat, shadowed by muted flames, “I need you to believe me, that I want you. I need you to believe, even for a moment, a tiny stretch of an instant,” her fingernail traces the scar on his wrist and moves gracefully up the angry red mark up his arm, “just believe you deserve feeling good too. Not just…’not angry’, but well and truly good. It won’t happen overnight. But just one sign, anything, to show me you’ll try. ”   
  
He hadn't said that he only needed her there, just that he needed her to be herself. It didn't even occur to him before now that her monumental list wasn't solely comprised of things that came naturally to her. She wasn't just being herself, she was being what he needed her to be, for his own sake and theirs as a couple.  
  
And it really was a large list, more than he felt comfortable with. He hadn't needed someone like that for a long time. When he was with Caelesti all he had was himself and his memories. Harper was familiar with being needed but it was vastly different than this. Lyndsi didn't need him to make her potions or fashion her wands or tend to her wounds. What she said she needed him to do was not centered around her at all, but at him.  
  
His lips pursed again, this time to still a quivering jaw as he looked at his wife, kneeling between his legs. Swallowing a lemon sized lump in his throat, Harper squeezed her hand.  
  
"I don't know how," he admitted, voice small.  
  
Maybe, for some people, the statement would have only made sense. No-one on this planet knows what they really want. They think they do, chasing after it mercilessly, only to find out they never wanted it after all, from the bottom of a pit. That wasn’t a metaphor, either, she once drove Sandor’s motorbike off a hill, and from bleeding in the grass they mutually decided as a married couple had no desire to have her buy one herself anymore.   
  
For Harper, though? Any admittance he didn’t know something was like the Jupiter-sized level of honesty. Maybe it matched her owning up aloud to being the one who initiated the affair, but somehow, Lyndsi just didn’t think so.  
  
Touching his face again with one hand, she squeezes back - not remotely caring he might break her fingers. Heck, she’d be proud to know he was strong enough to do that.   
  
“That’s step one.” It’s soft, just like her smile, but she cranes her neck up until he’ll meet her lips halfway, and doesn’t finish the thought until she’s kissed him. “Admitting you don’t know how, that’s step one,” she whispers over his lips and holds on to his hand tight enough she might break her own fingers, “so you did it. Just one sign. I can give you another - you didn’t flinch when I said his name, squeezed me a little tighter but, you didn’t flinch - but either way, I only asked for one.”  
  
Incredulous that his admittance of not knowing what to do had actually been the step in the right direction, Harper’s expression carries on being quizzical even as he closes the distance between their mouths to meet her in a kiss. It brought a deep relief to him, knowing he hadn’t let her down or disappointed her. Maybe the man she needed him to be was more natural to him than he realized.  
  
He nods after pulling away just a few inches, their noses bumping together. Harper was still a little confused and when you’re a genius that was saying something, but he was beginning to understand. In any case, when it came to matters of people, not maths or sciences or wandmaking, he would always defer to Lyndsi’s better judgment.   
  
The other sign, unbeknownst to him until his wife pointed it out, was surprisingly less perplexing than the previous. Harper couldn’t really attribute it to any amount of effort on his part. Distraction was most likely the culprit as far as the mention of Max was concerned. Well that and maybe conditioning. For all his attempts to think of him dead, Harper was constantly reminded of him, and not always by stubborn family members dropping his name idly into conversation, or Zoe not so subtly yelling it at his face.   
  
Harper sighed, the small smile gone from his face, “In my obstinate refusal to speak or hear of him...I had to find out about the attempt on his life when he was accusing me of it.” Harper had told her that day that he and Max had ‘spoken’ again. As before, when he had gone to see Max with the sole intention of ripping him a new one, she hadn’t asked for details.  
  
“I told him he was dead to me.”  
  
Pulling an inch back, Lyndsi stays resting on her knees, letting her hands fall back to lay on his lap. Playing with her finger tracing the vein on his wrist now, she's loathe even to blink. Looking away for that long felt wrong, especially now that he was saying that. Ironic, but she barely suppresses her own flinch at the reminder Max had almost died. The flames crack higher behind her, convincing her it was unreal, that it had not happened.   
  
All the breath went out of her at his words, her shoulders falling an inch. Fingers stalling, she looks down to them to tangle together before she spoke.  
  
"Maybe the brother you knew is dead, Harper. It's been almost a decade, and yet the only thing you know changed about him is this one fact. And yes it is a big deal, it's a fact that hurts, but it is still only one fact. You have to want to know more before that will change." All her words were soft, squeezing their hands again in quiet reassurance.   
  
"And you have the time, but maybe...not as much as you thought."  
  
"I don't really need another reminder that everyone has changed or how much time has passed, Lyndsi," he spoke softly but with a hint of the pain that still lingered over how much time had passed. Everyone seemed so keen to use that as a defense. He didn't know them anymore, didn't know his brother anymore. Yeah, that was true, because the brother he knew would have never slept with his wife. And...similarly, the wife he knew would never have slept with his brother.  
  
Lyndsea squeezes her jaw shut and simply nods her agreement. No, maybe he didn’t need to remember how long it had been. Maybe she needs to remember herself he’d changed more than he felt comfortable sharing with her yet. The thought was ice in her throat, shivers in her spine. There’d never been secrets between them before. The last time Harper tried to protect her by handling everything by himself, refusing to involve even his brother — well, he’d gotten himself killed.  
  
Harper sniffed, and shook his head, "How could he think...contemplate for even a second that I would do that to him?" Sure, he had all the reason in the world, sure he had imagined quite a few painful ways to get back at Max, sure! Yes, all of that was true but Max was the one who was supposed to be getting his trust back, not the other way around.  
  
"He bloody loved that car," he spoke, a little gruff, "old beat up piece of shit he bought and put back together." Harper restrained a snort because that's what his brother did. He 'fixed' things.  
  
Lyndsi gives a grin like she’s taking a sip of whiskey and toasting an imaginary bartender for all her sorrows before she downs it.   
  
"I didn't want to forgive him, half of me still doesn't. What does it say about me if I let him off easy? Because apparently what it says about me if I don't is that I'm a spiteful monstrous man capable of fratricide."  
  
“He doesn’t think that — No one thinks that, Harper.” Lyndsea was insistent, but her eyes were wide with the knowledge that she might have lied. Harper himself might think that. Was that what he truly thought of himself? It didn’t surprise her, though, that he was caught up in thoughts of appearance, presentation, restitution, and all other manner of things detailing the subtleties of communication. In other words, all the things Max never cared to consider. She didn’t want to tell Harper (again) that he was thinking too much, but maybe she could explain it a little. Max did that for her when she was lost.   
  
With a steely breath, Lyndsi says, “Max thinks in a linear fashion, Harper. It’s the closest he gets to logic. You tell him he’s dead to you, after someone tried to kill him… is it really that surprising he’s going to wonder if it was you? 1 + 1 equals two. Nuance has never been his strong suit. He’s not as smart as you.” She lifts her head, eyes searching his, hoping against hoping he understands her.   
  
“I know why you don’t want to forgive him,” she says quieter, still holding his gaze, “but if you don’t want him to think the worst of you, maybe you shouldn’t think the worst of him. And,” she raises a hand quickly, “before you say it’s his problem, of his own making, which is a hundred percent true mind, just…remember what you’re going to be giving up. Max is your brother, Harper. No, it won’t be the same, and maybe you aren’t ready to let go and find something else, but maybe you shouldn’t say ‘Never’ either. You’ve known him — hell, since the day he was born, he wanted to be you. It wasn’t until you were —,” she chokes on the words, “not here, that he started to find his own way…but still, you’re supposed to be his big brother. You’re always going to be more mature than him, it’s just how time works.” There, like that wasn’t her proving why she understood Max’s thought process? A plus B…   
  
“You tell me you miss the man you were, well, who was he? He wasn’t solely my husband, or Alcott’s father. You weren’t defined by us - you aren’t defined by us. Maybe the way you be these things again, husband and father and yes, brother, is you pretend you are while you do things husbands and fathers and brothers do, until one day you wake up and realize you stopped pretending.”  
  
That made sense, didn’t it? In true to herself fashion, Lyndsea was half as logical as Max, but nowhere near so nuanced and eloquent as Harper. There was a reason she loved them both in her way, painful as it was to remember for her too.   
  
He hated the fact that Lyndsi was the one explaining Max to him. He hated why that was. He hated the fact that they were here together and there for each other while he was underground in a cold chamber, wishing to get back to his loving wife. He hated that Lyndsi now knew his brother better than he did, and worse, he hated even the slightest possibility that Max knew Lyndsi better than he did.   
  
And all this hatred filled him with anger. He didn't know how to get rid of it, and didn't know how to rise above it. If he was so smart, he should know better. Instead here he was, getting advice on his brother from his wife, who had slept with them both and yet only loved him. Who better, right?  
  
The moment he realized his thoughts were turning bitter much too close to the subject of Lyndsi, he took his hands back and rubbed at his face.   
  
"Pretend," he repeated bemused, "after all this time...that's what I'm back to doing. Pretending to be the man I want to be until I become him?"  
  
“That’s the gist of it, yes,” Lyndsi said, barely moving, “as truthfully that’s what we all do, Harper.” Her hands were already aching as if to reach for him again. Not fooled by his tiny amusement even as she was grateful for it, her hands fall instead to hold each other. The anger he’d spoken of was threatening the edges of his vision; she felt the clench in his thigh beneath her wrist where she rests it against her pulse. Biting down on her lip, she finally gets up to sit next to him on the couch instead.  
  
This time she reaches for his shoulder and knee, gently turning him to her as she adds, “I don’t need to fix you, you know. At least, I don’t feel that way. You just said that you know I’m human, but it doesn’t stop me from being perfect to you — well, it’s the same thing for me, husband. I know you’re hurting, I know you’re angry, I know you hate things all too easily and can’t seem to find love — but you’re still perfect to me. I am more in love with you than I was when I met you. I love, that you defended me, protected me, fought for me. I love that you helped Nadia, and that you somehow just knew that our son would be able to figure out your codes. I love that you still get excited about impossible things, I love that you want to help people so much that you’ve got the uncrowned king of France wearing a t-shirt with your name on it and yes that is a fact, that is true, Tony took a picture and sent me it as collateral.” She cracks a little bit of a smile again. “I love you. That won’t change if you’re mad at me. I’m mad at me. And I’m sorry, because it was stupid, and it was wrong, and it was above all utterly destructive, and stupid, did I— it was stupid, Harper, because I’m actually yours. I’m yours.”   
  
Well, as long as it was everyone then, he thought as she revealed he wasn't alone in his methods. And it did make him feel better to know it. If there was one thing he did know about himself as a person it was that he was a very good pretender. He didn't think he had ever thought that a positive attribute until now.  
  
Grateful to have her sitting next to him on his same level, Harper allowed himself to be turned to face her better. His smile returned gradually the more she spoke. He even managed a small chuckle at the mention of the D'Grey brothers.  
  
He nods, speaking softly, "I forgive you." Because he wasn't sure he had said it before, and because it needed to be said aloud in the conversation, just like she had voiced her guilt before.  
  
"Mine," he agreed, leaning in to kiss her again, whispering the same word against her lips every time he parted for air.  
  
Amazing how much her heart soared to hear that simple phrase, by the time he said that word she was in frank awe she wasn't sitting on the tip of a mountain. Mine. And considering how selfish she had always been, was it any surprising she grins to hear him claim her? Mine. Relief pours warmth into her chest, stilling her, then giving her new shivers with every new kiss. She leans in greedy to them, resting hand around his neck.   
  
She only pauses as she adds gently, "I forgive you too, honey."  
  
Then she kisses him again, holds on tighter as she sits back further into the couch. Everytime he said 'mine' she echoes, "yours," until she asked, "what do you intend to do with me, love?"  
  
The weight that had constricted his chest before had all but gone now as she 'forgave him all his trespasses', half of which she didn't even know the details to. He knew he would tell her; that there would come days where he would be able to speak openly and freely of what he had done without flinching away from the memories and instead using them to prove how stronger he was because of them. Today, however, wasn't part of those days. Today was the day he pretended to be the husband Lyndsi needed him to be.  
  
Hand cupping her face, he surprised himself when the other hand was already at her waist without any forethought.  
  
"Make you mine in every way," he replied in between kisses that grew more heated, "my wife, my Lyndsi."  
  
Surprised -- and undeniably pleased -- as he pulls her in, she twists on the couch, her feet naturally slipping right out of her heels, legs falling right back into place between his. Ankles snag around his as she finds herself murmuring amusement low in her throat, half a cute girly growl (and she promises that wasn't an oxymoron).  
  
"My husband," she echoes in mumbles against his lips, "my hero, my lover, my Harper."  
  
Lyndsi, she thinks happily as his fingers trace her jawline, mumbling again, "I missed being your Lyndsi."  
  
He kisses down her neck, her chest pressing against his when she exhaled a caught breath. He pulled back as much as he could bear, pulling up Lyndsi's blouse by the hem.  
  
"You'll never miss it again," he promised, vowed as he kissed her again, leaning close over her once more, sliding her skirt up her thighs.  
  
Surprise and excitement flusters her cheeks and neck, turning them rosy with heat. Eyes fluttering, she looks down to his hand disappearing under the fabric, scratching at her nylon stockings. Breath stutters as her gaze locks his again. The pure, unadulterated want there was familiar, though only from a depth of memory she hadn't accessed in years. About to ask if he was sure - about to point out she didn't need him to do anything that would make him uncomfortable - she swallows the words in a haze. Her doubting him was the last thing they needed. Exhaling out hot, she twists under him on the couch so he could push her back or pull away -- whichever he decided, it was on him.  
  
There's a small smile on her pink lips as she holds his gaze steady, murmuring his name under her breath, adding only, "I believe you...but I would quite enjoy it if you showed me."  
  
The corner of her mouth twitches up as she touches the corner of his, gentle fingertips passing over the twist with reverance and love.  
  
His chuckle came out more as a grumble which he was thankful for. It was easier to pretend it wasn't half nervous that way. But he had been nervous too their first time together, and that memory had turned out sweet. This one would too.  
  
He hooked her underwear with his fingers, pulling it down past her knees, but the thigh-high stockings, those he'd always liked, so those stayed. Evidence of his enjoyment was making his trousers a little tighter, surprising him for a moment. The next he was undoing the belt and buttons.   
  
Unsurprised as she was as her stockings stayed up (her wiggle makes his fingers give their hem a playful snap), her heart still skips feeling his bare digits on her skin. The hand on his face falls as she hears the belt buckle, landing on his thigh...or, that, wasn't his thigh. Eyes widen. For an instant she doesn't move. Then she slips back on the couch, chuckling low in her throat with frantic abash and delight. Her gaze already hazy, a cursory glance to the flames see them stretch higher. Darkening gaze with want and need see him as he leans over her, the urgency in his actions only making her more excited. She hadn't felt him so eager since -- ...well, Lyndsi wasn't going to think about that.  
  
Instead, she leans back to shed her camisole and sweater. Her hair falls down everywhere as she chucks it over shoulder, but she leaves the bra in place, unsure if Harper would want it off or not. The skin atop her chest flush as pink as her lips with pebbled cherry tips, and (she thinks with some abash, some pride) they were almost fully pointing up. If anything was going to remind her she wasn't a fledling teenager it was that -- but Harper was pushing her back, kissing her urgently, brushing fingers over her reverently, and she might as well be sixteen again. And oh, wasn't that sweet.  
  
He pushed his pants and boxers down as far as they would go once the belt was off, disregarding them almost entirely as they stay around his ankles. Her chuckle makes him smile and lean in to her again to kiss her, unable to help himself. His hands tangle in her golden hair, passing his fingers through it and moving it out of her face.   
  
He pulled back again, remembering to take off his shirt and while his hands did tremble, he pushed through it. She had already seen every scar, kissed every inch of raised flesh he had allowed her to. He could do this.  
  
Harper comes back and kisses the available skin of her chest with some desperation. His breathing heavy as he mouths a nipple through the lacy bra, Harper follows the trail up from her chest, up her neck, to her mouth again.  
  
As he sheds his shirt, Lyndsi watches his hands tremble and she stays beneath him with quiet excited breaths and fingers itching to help him. Even knowing he had to do this himself. It was odd, she knew that, for her to be so eager when the view was "not pretty" as he said. Yet, was it so wrong? She wants to see all of him, just as he bares her (except the stockings he liked). Every scar was proof to her of how much he would endure just to be able to love her. All her own scars were internal (or walking around and banished from the house). She wants to prove to him she loves him for the scars instead of merely in spite of them , almost as much as he wants to prove to her he still can love her well.  
  
And his mouth on her chest was doing a damn good job of that already. A tiny moan slips through parted lips. The stain on her mouth is echoed on his own by now. Forgetting entirely her guilt now, her anxiety, her worry and apology -- all there was, was Harper, her husband, his mouth and his hands. One hand stretches over her shoulder, gripping the couch arm until her knuckles turn clean white behind her. Hips lift as she thinks, she wants to check she hasn't frightened him - but oh no, no she hasn't. The murmur of approval is low in her throat.   
  
"Please, Harper," she mutters out, revolving her hips into his, turning her head into his hands as they cup, bunching hair around her cheeks, her neck, her vulnerable throat. Every place his fingers graze is lit by now, as the want low in her belly is clenching with each revolve of her hips.   
  
"Please, husband, I need you."   
  
Truer words were never spoke, Lyndsi thinks hazily as her free hand brushes up his back. Harper made her better than herself.   
  
He finds himself nodding before she had finished voicing her small plea, hips bucking against hers by their own accord. If he could speak (he wasn't entirely sure he could at the moment), he felt he would be pleading just the same, despite the fact he had sworn never to do so ever again. How foolish that promise had been, when there was so many other sweeter things in life there was no shame in asking for.   
  
A hand leaves her neck to grip and position himself at his wife's entrance. He moans just realizing how wet she was. Anticipation building in his heavy breathing, he pushes in, another immediate moan leaving his mouth at the feeling. He opens his eyes again, his forehead leaning into hers, mouth open and for several seconds he doesn't even move. His body is pressed against her, closer than ever, and nothing had made more sense than this.  
  
The sensation as they joined -- in haste, still half clothed, wet and wanting -- stole all her remaining breath. Mouth agape, the roof dry in odd contrast to their wet lips and dancing tongues, she presses her forehead into his with weak, warm squeeze. Everything is still. They stay suspended, in a single breath, an elongated moment of ecstasy and fantasy. How long had she dreamt of this very embrace? There's a growing feeling of triumph, of success, that burns her throat and shuts her eyes tight. Curling her lips up, as she shifts a slow circle and pushes forward, it feels like coming home.  
  
Her elbow digs into the couch cushion as they climb. Perspiring in evidence of need as she's stretched, her skin sticks to his chest through her bra. Their joining is almost gentle for all it's rush, for all he grabbed her. Her heel lifts higher, spreads her furthur as they revolve. It's only then she fully understands her folly of ever finding anyone else to make her feel like this - so perfect, so complete, so whole and so, so much more than just herself.   
  
He wasn't able to stay still for very long. His body knew what to do, and it knew what it wanted. Lost in the pleasure, it would have been all too easy to continue thrusting in sharp and quick movements, completely oblivious to anything else. Perhaps if he had been successful when they first tried, that's what he would have done.  
  
Instead, knowing there was no way he could last long and yet wanting to remain in this complete ecstasy with Lyndsi, his wife, his lover, Harper's first moves were slow, tentative. Yet it wasn't long before any kind of forethought left him. If his fault indeed was thinking too much then that became of no consequence. Harper only knew how he felt, and how Lyndsi felt around him and against him. He was completely enthralled in her. He groaned against her mouth as he sought to press against her closer and even deeper.  
  
"Lyndsi," he moans into her open mouth, "my Lyndsi."   
  
"Yours," she echoes in a voice high and breath. Warm, slippery and wet as if she were actually embroiled in flames, she slides lower on the couch slow. Her back flat, her hands fall languid to wrap around his lower bare back. There were raised marks and torn skin, yet her fingers slip between them like a glove to hold on, like he was still made just for her, made to fit inside her. Her toes dig into her foot as one tangles to rest against his upper back. What had begun slow now took dizzying speed, each motion shorter than the last. He struck that spot within her again and again. Grinding against it like he never needed to be guided there, and Lyndsi's breath hitches. The catch on her raw throat makes each sound higher than the last, like chasing some notes even dogs might not hear, each gasp sweeter, shorter and shorter and shorter. They race, unaware of surroundings, only of every muscle clenching, of angled heels and elbows, spread legs and bouncing chests, of glistening skin all stuck together in shapes she didn't understand. Tense and wound like a bow, all at once she releases one utterly silent, long exhale of joy.  
  
And then they were still again. If only for a moment before she murmurs his name like her best-kept secret, aching so sweetly through shivers underneath him.   
  
"I want to keep you forever," she murmurs into his mouth hovering above her, eyes cracking open as she smiles at him. There, she thinks. Short it might have been, and yet, hadn't they bloody waited long enough? And it still has her heart racing, to see this precious glimpse of her husband - to know he had gone from anger to love. He turned his rage into grasping her so firmly - yet gently, claiming her with affection and determination so sweet. The possessive nature of the thought makes her heart skip another beat but maybe it was just tired of beating for two bodies right now. 


End file.
